


For a foreseen invocation

by vanityscare



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Break Up, Explicit Sexual Content, Frottage, M/M, Masturbation, Sex Toys, Tour Bus, Touring, Trivializing of racial slur, Vomiting, Where We Are Tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 13:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3812194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanityscare/pseuds/vanityscare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And Louis knows what flavour Harry is. Harry's flavour is quick, stolen kisses in the X-Factor house; it's long summer nights spent lying on the lawn in their back yard, pretending to be star gazing in spite of the all-consuming city lights; it's tingling laughs muffled by colliding lips; it's soft skin gone hot from clumsy, frantic sex; it's a never-ending series of fights, some petty and pointless, others not; it's tears pooling in Harry's eyes after another, </i>"No"<i> from Louis. It's a lost love shot into space by a wobbly bottle rocket and swallowed by a black hole just when it was on the brink of landing on a star.</i></p><p>(Or, the one where Harry and Louis haven't had an easy time co-existing as band mates since their breakup right before the release of <i>Take me home</i> and have no desire to give into the insistent pressure put on their shoulders by the universe to pry open old wounds.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	For a foreseen invocation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swallowsmateforlife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowsmateforlife/gifts).



> **NOTE: Louis' views and thoughts around the infamous Zouis weed-vid, more specifically, his views and thoughts around the racial slur he uttered in the video, are _not_ my personal views. I do not condone the use of racial slurs, nor to I find it okay for anyone play it off like a trifle when someone utters them, especially not when it's uttered in a way that indicates it was clearly meant as an insult.**  
> 
> Hi! So, this is my first time writing a non-AU fic, so I don't really know what the norm is when it comes to sticking to canon facts/events. There are certain elements from real life that I've purposely left out – some because they didn't fit with the plot, some because they just wouldn't have served any actual purpose had I included them. Two notable changes I made are the following:
> 
> \- I erased Eleanor's existence. This is not because I have anything at all against her, just to make that clear, it's just because including her would have resulted in the story becoming unnecessarily long, unnecessarily drama-filled and unnecessarily complicated.  
> \- The timeline in the fic doesn't match real life events in regards of the Larry-relationship. In the fic, they broke up in October 2012, which doesn't quite add up with when they stopped publicly interacting in real life.
> 
> So, to the person this was written for, swallowsmateforlife: First of all, I am so sorry about the mess this turned out as. A majority of it was written over less than one week because my time management-skills are awful, so I apologise if it's completely cringeworthy and unreadable. Second, I have no idea whatsoever if this is what you had in mind, so if it's not, I'm so, so sorry! Third, my ability to write a proper ending to stories is usually a wee bit (read: A hell of a lot) better than this, because I'm aware that everything just became rushed and terrible towards the end there. That being said, I hope you find it in you to enjoy it anyway!

  


**For a foreseen invocation**  


In all fairness, it's hardly Louis' fault that by the time One Direction has played the the first of two shows in Buenos Aires, four out of five band members are all out of clean socks.

“I don't even _wear_ socks,” he says with a lazy wave of his hand, looking over at Zayn and Liam who are eyeing him with poorly disguised contempt from where they're sitting side by side on the couch. They're in Louis' hotel room, waiting for Harry, Niall and three security guards to return from a run to McDonald's, and it would seem like Liam and Zayn have figured the lack of two relatively sane band members' presences to be a sign from above that time has come to judge Louis for crime he didn't commit.

“You wear socks all the time,” Zayn says. “You're wearing socks right now.”

Louis finds it little difficult to deny that particular accusation since he's sprawled out on the bed with his sock-clad feet perched up against the headboard, putting them very much on display. Nevertheless he shoots Zayn a sour look. “That doesn't mean I'm the one who's gone through both of yours, my own _and_ Niall's sock collection in five days.”

“No, but you were the smartass who suggested we put small bottles of booze inside our socks,” Liam says.

“To keep them from breaking!” Louis insists as he sits up. When Liam and Zayn simply keep looking at him, flat and glaringly unimpressed, he purses his lips. “Okay, alright, I'll admit that plan may have backfired, but it was an honest attempt.”

Zayn's eyelids drop. “An honest attempt at bringing alcohol that we could have bought if and when we needed it instead of taking it with us from home?”

“You're making it sound like it was the worst plan in history,” Louis says.

“It kinda was, because the bottles broke and soaked most of our socks and now we have none to wear,” Liam points out.

“Then do laundry or buy new socks, Liam,” Louis says sourly. “Jesus Christ.”

It's probably for the best that the door clicks open and Harry and Niall come stumbling in right then, because Liam looks a little forlorn and Zayn looks like he's already lost interest in the conversation. A rather ridiculous amount of food bags are being dropped on the bed, fries and salt spill out in Louis' lap, and a few minutes of arguing over what food belongs to who ensue.

“I can't believe you forgot my milkshake,” Louis says darkly when they've all settled down. He plucks miserably at the half dead salad on his burger.

“Don't look at me,” Niall says through a mouthful of fries. “Harry was in charge of deserts.”

Louis looks over to the armchair on the other side of the room where Harry's nibbling absentmindedly on an onion ring, his eyes glued to his phone. “I can't believe you forgot my milkshake, _Harry_ ,” he says loudly.

Harry looks up for a split second and his lips quirk upwards in a tiny smile. “Sorry.” And then his attention returns to the phone. Liam, Zayn and Niall exchange looks, but none of them say anything. They never do. 

Louis eats the rest of his meal in silence and only makes his presence known by occasionally nodding and smiling in response to something one of the others are saying. 'One of the others' meaning Liam, Zayn and Niall, because Harry, like Louis, keeps his mouth closed and seems to only have eyes for whatever is going on on his phone. By the looks of it, it's something terribly fascinating.

Liam and Niall leave to go to their own rooms when they're done eating with a quick, “See you tomorrow.” Zayn and Harry linger, but Harry's as busy with his phone as ever and Zayn's just lying on his back, staring at ceiling.

Louis smacks his tongue loudly. “If neither of you are gonna entertain me, I'd rather you leave.”

Zayn snorts. “Such a gracious host.”

“In order to be a host, I'd have to have actually invited you, but you all invited yourselves, which means that I'm not a host and I therefore am under no obligations to be gracious,” Louis says matter of factly.

“You were the one who demanded we all come to your room because you couldn't be arsed to move,” Zayn says as he gets up on his feet and brushes a few crumbs off his jumper.

“That may be, but you're still not entertaining me, so unless you're planning a spectacular performance that involves gymnastics and pyro effects, I want you to leave so I can get some much needed beauty rest.”

“You slept until four this afternoon.”

“Just fuck off, will you?”

Zayn does fuck off and he laughs all the way to the door. Louis is pretty sure he can hear him after the door's closed as well. Bastard. 

It's not until he stands up to get out of his clothes that he looks across the room and realises that Harry's still sitting there in the armchair. He's got his earplugs in now and judging by the way his foot's bopping up and down, it can only be assumed that he's listening to music. 

Louis stands there, a little awkwardly, not quite sure what to do.

There was a time when he'd walk over to Harry and either smack him in the back of the head or simply plonk down in his lap to get his attention, but now... Now doing either one of those would do nothing but to cause an unbearably uncomfortable silence. So instead he just remains where he is, hoping that Harry will look up eventually and get the picture.

It's a bit painful, is the thing; it aches deep inside his chest, fiery and ice cold at the same time, whenever he finds himself in a situation like this, because it serves as nothing but a cruel reminder of how much has changed and of all the things he's lost. Of all the things _they've_ lost. And it's not something he thinks about all that often, but on certain occasions, like now, it's impossible not to, because it's being thrown at his face so quickly and with so much force that he doesn't have time to duck and cover.

By the time Harry finally averts his eyes and meets Louis', the air feels like it's stilled with tension. Tension that it's mostly likely only Louis that can sense. Harry blinks, eyelids heavy with exhaustion after a long day and, if Louis knows him right, not enough sleep. “Where did everyone else go?” he asks as he pulls out his earplugs.

Louis clears his throat. “Their own rooms.”

“Oh.” There's a stretch of silence while Harry puts his phone and his earplugs in the pocket of the hoodie that Louis has a nagging suspicion he's stolen from Niall. The last time Louis saw Harry wearing a hoodie that actually belonged to him was... he doesn't even know. A year ago, at least. “What time is it?”

Louis throws a look at the digital clock on the nightstand behind Harry. “One thirty.”

“Oh,” Harry says again. His eyes flicker around the room and his tongue come out to lick along the seam of his lips. Ridiculously red lips. “It's late,” he adds, quite unnecessarily.

“It is,” Louis agrees and then they fall into silence for another few seconds. 

Louis hates it so much, this stifling feeling that settles somewhere between his chest and his throat, making the mere task of _existing_ uncomfortable. He turns around eventually and walks over to the small bag he brought in from the bus, flips it open and pulls out a pair of clean underwear along with his toothbrush. When he straightens up, Harry's still standing there, but he's turned around and has his eyes on Louis. 

Louis sucks in his bottom lip. “I'm gonna head to bed, so...” he trails off, waving his hand in the general direction of the open space between the TV and the window.

“Right, yeah.” Harry shoves his hands into his pockets. “Been a long day.”

It really hasn't. Louis' day has lasted for all of nine hours and he doesn't feel particularly tired if he's being completely honest, but if the alternative is standing here and exchange awkward small talk with Harry, he'd rather go to bed. 

Attempting a smile, he steps past Harry, over to the bed, and sits down on the edge of it. “Yeah, well, unless you wanna have a sleepover, you should probably go to your own room.”

Harry nods, but it looks like his thoughts are elsewhere as he continues to inspect Louis. If Louis didn't know any better, he'd say Harry was searching for something. And he hates this, too; that he _doesn't_ know any better, that he doesn't know what's going on in Harry's head and, most of all, that he no longer feels like he has any right to ask.

“Sleep tight,” Harry says with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes as he walks to the door. “See you tomorrow.” He waves, a small, awkward gesture of his hand and then he's gone and Louis is alone.

Louis strips out of his clothes and takes a quick shower, opting against sleeping in his boxers and thus leaving the clean pair he picked out on the floor, before he slides in under the covers and closes his eyes. Not too surprisingly, sleep doesn't come, and after a few minutes, he reaches for his phone on the nightstand and taps on the Twitter-icon. While it loads, he flips over to lie on his front and pushes the thin sheet that serves as a duvet down to pool around his waist. It's too goddamned hot, even with the air-con on.

The first tweet that pops up on his feed is one posted by Harry less than two minutes ago.

' _Argentina thank you so much. You were incredible. Very sweaty. But incredible._ '

Louis' lips tug up in a smile, a proper one this time. Harry got the sweaty-part right. The incredible-part, too, but especially the sweaty-part. They were all practically dripping onstage earlier and Niall complained on the ride back to the hotel that his jumper kept sticking to his back, to which Zayn answered that maybe wearing something with short sleeves would have been a smarter idea.

Louis falls asleep a little past three thirty in the morning with his phone in his hand and his face mushed into the pillow.

*

They finish up in Argentina the next day and then they're off to Uruguay and Brazil before they have a few days off. Louis spends a couple of days at home before he leaves for Barcelona in honour of Dan's stag do where he gets drunk, eats a lot and sleeps a lot. He's mighty good at that. 

Three days before they, to Niall's predictable excitement, are playing Croke Park, Louis is back in London, lounging on his couch with a bag of chips clutched loosely in his hand, his attention fixated on a match between Barcelona and Atlètic Madrid, when the doorbell rings. He groans, isn't the least bit interested in interacting with whoever it is that's insisting on ruining his rest. But since he's neither impolite nor an invalid, he scrambles to his feet and brings the bag of chips with him with for comfort when he waddles through the living room and down the hallway.

It's the sight of Harry's form that greets him when he unlocks the door and opens it. They look at each other, Louis confused, Harry apologetic for reasons unbeknownst to Louis. Maybe just for showing up at Louis' doorstep with no explanations given beforehand. It's something Harry would be apologetic about.

“I thought you were in LA,” Louis says after a loaded silence, not bothering with any greetings. Harry certainly _looks_ like he's been in LA, or at least some place decidedly more summery than England, his skin glowing with the memories of sunny days and probably a few too many piña coladas.

“Got back this afternoon, figured it'd be good to have a couple of days to readjust before Dublin.”

“Oh, right.” Louis clears his throat. “So what's up?” Then a sinking feeling erupts in his stomach. “Did something happen? Is everyone okay?”

Harry looks vaguely perplex. “I- yeah, everyone's fine.”

Stuffing another mouthful of chips into his mouth, Louis takes a step back to let Harry in. “Then what's up?” he asks again as he watches Harry step over the threshold and close the door.

“I was in the neighbourhood, thought I'd... stop by.”

“You thought you'd stop by,” Louis repeats. There are so many questions he could ask as a follow-up to that statement, so many questions he _should_ ask, because Harry hasn't ' _stopped by_ ' without any further ado in years. But, as usual, he doesn't ask, just tells Harry to come in and asks if he'd like something to eat or drink.

“You don't have any green tea, do you?” is Harry's answer to that, to which Louis merely blinks. Harry grins sheepishly. “Something with alcohol in it, then?”

Louis blanches, more out of surprise than anything else. “You want a drink?”

“If it's not too much trouble?”

“No, no, it's alright,” Louis says quickly as he walks over to the cabinet next to the bookcase where he keeps his alcohol. Holding up a half empty bottle of Bourbon, he asks, “You still drink whisky?”

Harry smiles and says, “Yeah,” but his shoulders are slumped even more than usual, and Louis notices then that the heaviness in his eyes seem to be of the kind that may have other reasons for being there than just jet lag. But he doesn't ask.

And then there's also another one of those odd moments where Louis is faced with the reality of how much has changed between them. Once upon a time, he'd have just handed Harry the whole bottle and told him to have at it. But now he feels like he should get Harry a glass, feels like he has to behave properly and treat Harry like a guest rather than as his... whatever it is they are. So he gets Harry a glass from the kitchen, even pours the drink. When he returns to the living room, Harry's sat down on the couch, hands folded neatly in his lap. There's an absentminded expression on his face and it takes a few seconds before he sees Louis holding out the glass for him to take.

“Thanks,” he says, offering a poor excuse of a smile before he, to Louis' great befuddlement, downs the whole drink in one gulp. Not saying a word, he reaches for the bottle on the table, pours himself another one and swallows that, too in one go. 

A third round goes into the glass and Louis watches, part petrified, part amused, as Harry takes a sip and then lowers the glass to his knee. “Are you sure everything's okay?” he asks, drawing his legs up to the couch. “You seem a little... more on edge than usual.”

“Got an invitation to your mum's wedding,” Harry says, not answering the question. “You okay with me going?”

“It's not _my_ wedding. If you got an invitation, it probably means mum wants you there, so... you should go.”

“Okay.”

Harry goes quiet for a few seconds, swirls the whiskey around in the glass, looks down at his feet. He does that a lot when he's nervous, a habit he's carried around for as long as Louis has known him. When they were at the X-Factor and Harry's feet-staring was a weekly occurrence, Louis used to plonk himself down on Harry's lap, saying that if he absolutely _had_ to have something to stare at, it could at least be something pretty.

“Nick and I broke up.”

Harry's voice drags Louis back to the present, and he blinks. “What?”

Averting his eyes to meet Louis', Harry shrugs. He looks a little forlorn. “Nick and I broke up,” he repeats.

“You and Nick... broke up.” Louis feels dizzy and a little lost and his next words come out a lot sharper than intended. “I don't- I didn't even know you were dating him.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Harry says with a curt laugh. “Didn't really know how to tell you.”

Louis would love to yell at Harry, to tell him get lost, to demand an explanation, but the thing is, he gets it. There hasn't been anyone “special” in Louis' life since Harry, not unless a couple of random hookups on the road count, but if there had been, Louis knows oh too well that he'd have no idea how to break the news to Harry. He'd go over it in his head, back and forth and upside down, trying to think of the best way to tell Harry that he'd finally found someone to replace him with. And he'd be scared of the reaction, unsure if Harry would react with anger or with hurt, with insults or with tears or, worst of all, with a blank face and a wall of ice thicker than the one that's already there.

So he gets it, maybe mostly because he has to admit, if only to himself, that the reason he's upset right now isn't so much that Harry didn't tell him that he's been dating Nick as it is that Harry has been dating Nick (or anyone, for that matter) in the first place. It pokes at his heart, like small stabs with a blunt needle, thinking about Harry with Nick, thinking about the two of them kissing, hugging, being on dates, having sex, holding each other, laughing together. 

Because when he imagines those scenarios, he can't help but think that it used to be him in Nick's place, before he went and screwed everything to the deepest, most miserable pits of hell.

“How long were you together?” is all he says in the end, keeping his eyes firmly locked on the TV. It seems like the safest option.

“March last year,” Harry says.

“Right.” He coughs. “So... five months after we-”

“Yeah.”

“Right.”

And then it's quiet again. The TV's still on and Louis is looking at it, but his brain doesn't register what's going on on the screen. Harry's presence is louder than the cheering football crowds, even when he's not saying a word. Harry always did have the ability to fill a room by the simple act of being in it, unlike Louis who can fill a room just fine, but has to be loud and energised in order to do so.

The match cuts to commercial break after a few minutes and Harry coughs. “What are you thinking?” he asks.

Nibbling at a loose piece of skin on his lip, Louis stretches for the remote control and mutes the TV. “I'm thinking,” he starts, “that I can't believe you dated someone for over a year and I had no idea. Fair enough that we haven't exactly been... living in each others' pockets lately, but that you managed to hide a relationship from me for that long? You better tell me you went actively out of your way to keep me from finding out, otherwise I'll start feeling bad about myself.”

Harry smiles at that, a proper smile with no restraints. “I went actively out of my way to hide it from you,” he says.

“Good. Who did know, then? Not that many, I reckon.” He hesitates, isn't quite sure if he wants to know, but ultimately decides that when he's come this far, it'd be pointless to back down, and thus adds, “The other boys?”

“They know,” Harry says. “And my family, his family, some of our security, a couple of guys from management and a few other friends.”

“Oh.” At least he's not the only one left out of the loop. “But you weren't planning on coming out?”

Harry's face falls at that and he almost seems to curl in on himself when he answers. “He didn't want to, didn't want the media hassle and... all that. That's why we broke up.”

And now Louis' face falls, too, and as does his heart and a hot surge of guilt flares through him, because it's only Harry's luck, really, that his first two boyfriends would both be the kind to refuse to go public with him due to fear of the general public's opinion. Granted, that fear most likely had roots in two different reasons – Louis didn't want to go public because he wasn't ready for anyone to think he was anything but straight, while Nick probably didn't want to go public because he was afraid he'd be forever remembered as the guy who turned teenage heart throb Harry Styles into a gay hipster.

“I'm sorry,” he says, offering a wry smile. “I think you should start asking guys on the first date if they're planning on being complete arseholes to you as soon as your relationship starts getting serious, might save you some heartache.”

“And then watch them run for the hills to tell all the newspapers in the country about how Harry Styles from One Direction is a nutter with a tendency to get too serious, too fast?” Harry looks and sounds tipsy, his eyes slightly unfocused, words coming out with a hint of slurring to them. “I think I'll pass, but thanks for the advice.” He takes a sip of the whiskey, grimaces before turning his eyes to Louis. His gaze seem to soften, just a tad, and Louis gets an urge to hide under a blanket. And he totally would, if he wasn't sitting on the only blanket he keeps on the couch.

“What?” he says when Harry makes no signs of wanting to speak up, or at least stop looking at Louis.

“Just thinking,” Harry says before he throws back the rest of the whiskey in one go. Then he tips his head back to rest on the back of the couch and laughs, loud and a little hysterical and completely out of character. “I broke up with Nick less than two hours ago” he says, dragging his hands over his face. “And I came straight here because I didn't wanna be alone and you were the only one I wanted to see, which is ridiculous, because we're not even friends anymore, are we?”

Louis reckons Harry's still the lightweight he always has been, because he sounds more drunk than tipsy now. “Sure we are,” he says, but it sounds weak, even in his own ears. “We've just hit a rough patch.”

“Yeah, a rough patch that's lasted for almost two years.” Louis sees Harry's throat bob when he swallows. “You know, I wasn't gonna be upset about this breakup, because Nick and I agreed that it was best to end things and we agreed to stay friends, it wasn't anything like when you and I split, but this still sucks almost as much as it did back then. Go figure.”

Louis shakes his head, drags his fingers through his hair. It's greasy. “Maybe you should go home, Harry,” he says. “Eat something, get some sleep.”

“Why are you so obedient?” Harry asks, ignoring Louis completely. He's a rude drunk.

Louis has a moment of flashbacks to a bed in a hotel room in Amsterdam and a blindfold and a rolled up tie shoved into Harry's mouth, but strictly spoken, that had been Harry being obedient, not him. “Obedient?” he asks, raising one eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” Harry says, and he sounds far sharper all of a sudden. A little bitter, even. Bitterness is nothing but unbecoming on Harry. Bitterness is Louis' thing. Bitterness makes Louis look fierce, while on Harry, it only looks pathetic.

“No, I don't think I do,” Louis says. “But I really think it's time for you to go home now, because you're starting to approach that stage of drunkenness where you-”

“I'm not drunk, Louis, I'm just saying that I think you must have been a well trained dog in your previous life, because you're so good at taking orders now.”

Not drunk, right, and Louis really did get his arse insured three years ago. Harry doesn't seem at all interested in listening to Louis, though, nor does he seem inclined to let go of whatever it is he's on about, so against better judgement, Louis bites. “What are you talking about?”

Harry's shoulders drop and he raises his head, turning to look Louis right in the eyes. He has his mean-face on. He only ever has that face when he's drunk. “I'm talking about how the reason I have two breakups caused by the same issue on my hands now is that _you_ had to be so obedient you couldn't possibly stand up to the big bosses in those fancy offices and tell them that you wanted-”

“Okay, no, _no_ ,” Louis cuts in, scrambling to his feet. He stares down at Harry, his heart beating slightly faster than usual against his ribcage. His palms are sweaty and his mouth has gone dry, feeling like someone shoved a ball of cotton into it. “First of all, that's not what happened,” he says, and he hates how there's a tiny little quiver to his voice. “And if you hadn't just drank two and a half glasses of whisky as if it was water, you'd have remembered that. Second of all, we're not doing this right now, we're not doing it ever, we're done with it. And third of all, you need to get your sorry arse home right now.”

Harry stands up, too, unsteady enough on his feet that he staggers to the side and has to catch himself against the couch for a moment or two before he manages to stand up straight. “You're an obedient dog,” he then says lowly, pointing a finger at Louis' nose. “And you know what? I hate dogs.”

Louis knows very well that that's nothing but a ridiculous lie, knows that Harry's just drank a little too much a little too quickly and that he's now saying things that either makes no sense or that aren't true. And it's therefore irrational of Louis to get angry, to want to place a well formed fist in Harry's jaw, but god fucking damnit he _does_ want to do that. He doesn't actually do it, of course, because he's not drunk and therefore has no excuses for throwing punches, but he does nothing to stop Harry when he spins around and stalks out to the entrance hall either.

He stands there, listens to Harry getting his shoes and jacket on, and then the door being opened, only to be slammed shut a moment later. Louis drinks what's left in the whisky glass, sits there on the couch and stares at nothing but thin air, wondering if the last hour of his life has just been a grand joke put together by a cooperation between God, the Devil and the girl he threw mud at in second grade when she tried to kiss him. 

Louis can't escape the feeling that Harry just ended a long-lasting, unspoken truce that's been the only thing keeping them from violent self-destruction.

*

Croke Park is loud and Louis reckons that's mostly thanks to Niall's presence. 

It's equal parts endearing and annoying how smug Niall is backstage before the show, how he can't seem to stop fiddling with every object he lays eyes on, how his face keeps breaking out in a maniacal grin every other minute for no apparent reason. Right before they're set to go onstage, Louis swears he can hear Liam mutter something under his breath about tying Niall down and sit on him until he shuts up. He also swears he can Harry mumble something back about how that probably wouldn't do much good.

But Louis isn't paying attention to Harry. They've barely laid eyes on each other since arriving in Dublin, and Louis is still undecided about how he feels about that. But if Harry wants to pretend nothing happened, Louis reckons it's probably for the best if he plays along. 

One of the Instagram questions they answer during the show is one that asks what flavour each would be. Louis is asked what flavour Harry would be. 

And Louis knows what flavour Harry is. Harry's flavour is quick, stolen kisses in the X-Factor house; it's long summer nights spent lying on the lawn in their back yard, pretending to be star gazing in spite of the all-consuming city lights; it's tingling laughs muffled by colliding lips; it's soft skin gone hot from clumsy, frantic sex; it's a never-ending series of fights, some petty and pointless, others not; it's tears pooling in Harry's eyes after another, " _No_ " from Louis. It's a lost love shot into space by a wobbly bottle rocket and swallowed by a black hole just when it was on the brink of landing on a star.

But of course he doesn't say any of that. What he actually says is, “Salt and vinegar,” which makes no sense, but somehow still lures a laugh out of Niall. Louis doesn't look at Harry, but he can't mute him either, so he hears the little sound of, “Alright,” that he gets in response.

*

It's Tuesday evening when shit hits the fan.

They're in an hotel in Sunderland and Louis is halfway through getting ready for bed, standing naked in the middle of the bathroom with his mouth full of toothpaste foam, when he hears his phone beep with an incoming text. Finishing up, he turns off the light and closes the door before he slips into bed and reaches for the phone on the nightstand.

He swears his heart literally stops beating for a fraction of a second when he reads the text. It's from Zayn, so the fact that it's more than three words long is alarming enough in itself.

' _think we screwed up ? vid from peru is everywhere . do we call someone or wait for someone to call us ?_ '

Video from Peru. 

Video from Peru.

Louis knows very well that it's not a video from a concert Zayn's talking about. With his heart beating all the way up on his throat and with fingers that tremble ever so slightly, he taps on Zayn's contact link and presses the call-button.

Zayn picks up on the first ring. “ _Was it you that did it?_ ” is his greeting.

“What? No!” Louis clamps his mouth shut, blinks and draws a deep breath. “Fill me in, will you?”

“ _Not much to fill you in on_ ,” Zayn says. “ _Got a call from Danny, he told me to go check the Daily Mail and there it was on top of the front page, our names and something about a video and a joint and marijuana. Fuck if I know what happened._ ”

And, as Louis is gonna learn when his phone half an hour later is receiving a constant stream of texts from people high and low – from supervisors, from consultants, from media representatives, from _lawyers_ – absolutely no one is quite sure of what's happened. No one yells at him or even tells him off, but the passive aggressive reprimands he gets from about ninety percent of the texters are telling him, loud and clear, that they're blaming him, which, quite frankly, Louis finds quite offensive. It may have been him who filmed the goddamned video, but he knows for a fact that it exists on at least three devices other than his phone, one of which being _Zayn's_ phone. And it wasn't like Zayn had tried to stop him from filming either, he only played along, as of matter in fact.

' _wasn't my fault!!!!!!!_ ' he therefore types out and sends to everyone who's indirectly trying to make him own up. Louis isn't owning up to anything. Nope.

The media is, predictably enough, having a field day. One Direction member caught smoking weed on video. Haha. They make it sound like he and Zayn were hiding in a dirty alley, backs turned to the world to hide what they were doing. As if. Louis isn't bloody ashamed that he smokes weed once in a blue moon, alright, and he doesn't understand why anyone else thinks he should be, either. Granted, it may not be entirely legal everywhere in the world, which is probably why their media reps are less than pleased with him right now. That and the tiny little slur. Which Louis doesn't even remember having ever said out loud, so.

He turns his phone off after sending a quick, ' _okay, i won't_ ' in response to the text from Sarah from public relations that told him to not get on Twitter and to not, in any way, address _the situation_ in the foreseeable future. Louis is cool with that. He doesn't much fancy the idea of sitting on a hard couch, squished between Niall and Liam, and explain to a thirsty interviewer that his reason for taping himself and Zayn getting high in a van while talking too much shit for the general public's liking, is nothing more exciting than the fact that he was too high to realise that it could possibly be a bad idea.

And maybe, _maybe_ , on an entirely subconscious level, he was hoping for something like this to happen. Maybe.

It's past midnight by the time he manages to stop thinking and speculating and being pissed at the world for messing with his existence every time he's gotten a slight foothold. Sleep doesn't come, though, and he tosses and turns until the sheets are starting to feel clammy against his skin. He has half a thought of having a wank when there's a knock on the door.

Louis is more than happy to have an excuse to get out of bed, and he turns on the lamp on the nightstand before he pads across the room. It's only when he's standing with one hand on the doorknob that he realises that he's stark naked. Not that he has anything to be ashamed of, thank you very much, but there's that pesky thing about 'common decency' and 'not exposing yourself to someone who might not be interested in seeing your junk' or whatever.

“Whoever you are, do you mind if I open the door naked?” he asks.

It's quiet for a moment before Harry's voice carries through the door, a little unsure, but mostly amused. “I guess not.”

“Good,” Louis says before he unlocks the door and opens it. He waits until Harry's inside before he turns on his heel and walks back over to the bed, getting underneath the covers.

Harry's demeanour is apprehensive as he makes his way over to the bed and sits down at the foot end, looking at Louis with a crease between his eyebrows. He's wearing his pyjama pants, the same pair he's owned since the first tour. They've gotten a bit short, Harry's ankles peeking out under the hem, but they still look good on him. Of course it does. “So,” he says. “Looks like you and Zayn are in for a fun few days.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Is that why you came here? To inform me that I may have fucked up?”

“I think you can drop the 'may have'-part,” Harry says with an uneasy laugh.

“Not really interested in hearing it, Harry, so if that's all, you can-”

“No, that's not all, actually.” Harry's eyes fall to the floor for a split second and when he looks back up, he seems nervous. “I... I just have to ask, so don't take this the wrong way,” he starts, words hesitant, “but did you... did you leak that video on purpose?”

Louis' eyes widen on their own accord. “Why the hell would you think that?”

“Because of what I said, maybe?” Harry says and it comes out like a question, like he isn't sure if he quite knows in what direction the conversation may go next.

“Because of what you said when?”

“When I came over to yours after Nick and I-”

“What, you think I'd leak a potentially harmful video just because you broke up with your _boyfriend_?” There's suddenly something vaguely venomous in Louis' voice that he certainly didn't grant permission to be there, and he grimaces.

Harry notices, too, it seems, because he jolts back, like an invisible hand slapped him across the face. “That's not what I meant,” he says slowly. “I meant... I meant the part where I accused you of being, you know, obedient. I thought maybe you'd, like, leaked the video to... prove me wrong?”

And now Louis just stares. Not because he doesn't understand where Harry's coming from, because he totally does; doing something stupid and reckless like that just to prove a point, just to aim a gigantic ' _fuck you!_ ' right at Harry's face, is definitely something Louis could be inclined to do. No, the reason he's staring is that he can't believe he didn't think of it himself. Not that he would have actually done it just to fuck with Harry, but still. He should have at least thought of the possibility. He's severely disappointed in his own brain.

Harry's inspecting him with eyes that are slightly rounder than usual, maybe with worry, and Louis manages a little smile. “I appreciate that you apparently know me well enough to know that that's something I'd do, but no, I didn't,” he says.

“Oh, right,” Harry says, returning the smile with far more enthusiasm than Louis managed to muster up.

Sliding down on the bed so that his head's resting on the pillow, Louis pulls the duvet up to over his pecs. “Was that all, then? Gonna let me go to sleep now?”

“I- yeah, of course.” Harry scrambles to his feet, quickly and clumsily, the resemblance to a frightened baby deer uncanny. Said resemblance isn't exactly weakened by how the way his toes point inward is even more pronounced than usual and how he's nibbling almost frantically at his lower lip, leaving the flesh bright pink and shiny and so, so kissable. _Yes, Harry's lips are bloody kissable_. They always have been and they always will be.

Louis brushes away all thoughts of kissable lips, instead pushes himself up to a sitting position and frowns. “You okay, Harry?”

Harry nods and clears his throat. “I'm good,” he says as he starts backing away from the bed. “I'll see you tomorrow, yeah? Goodnight.”

“Yeah. Goodnight,” Louis says, offering another smile. This time, it goes unrequited, and Louis doesn't get much time to wonder why that is before Harry's gone.

*

They finish up in England early in June and have four days off before they jet off to Stockholm for two shows. 

While they're in London, Louis is starting to enter negotiations to bloody _buy_ the Rovers. He feels like a kid where he's sitting by a table that's otherwise filled with strict business men in stiff suits, but he's so excited he can't bring himself to give two monkeys about how young he must seem in their eyes. There's a press conference being held and Louis smiles the way he's supposed to and gives proper answers to the questions he's asked and ignores the unfamiliar management rep's request that he at least shaves off his beard to look a little more professional. 

It goes over well and if everything happens according to plan, Louis will be able to call himself part owner of a football team in a matter of months. He has a bit of trouble steering his excitement in the days that follow, much to Liam's chagrin and Niall's delight.

Louis likes Stockholm, especially in summer when the sun seems to never set. Of course it sets eventually, but not until late at night, past ten in the evening, when Louis has settled in in the back of the bus, cigarette in his hand and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Zayn's sitting on the opposite side of the lounge, having a mumbling conversation with Perrie over the phone that Louis does his best to not overhear. He's nice like that.

Zayn's conversation ends just as Louis is stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table. He looks somewhat forlorn when he puts his phone away. And okay, alright, Louis can understand the difficulties of maintaining a long distance relationship, but it's been less than three days since Zayn last saw Perrie face to face, and he's already starting to sink into a dark hole of grumpiness.

Sometimes, mostly late at night when he can't sleep and wishes he had someone to complain to or at least cuddle with, Louis hates being single. But right now, he considers himself lucky. At least he's not prone to grow bitter before turning thirty, unlike Zayn.

“Don't you dare start moping on my watch,” he says sharply, waving a finger in Zayn's direction.

“I'm not moping,” Zayn says mopingly with a moping expression on his mopey face.

Louis huffs and tosses him the carton of cigarettes along with a lighter. “You'll see her again before Paris, so have a smoke and relax,” he says. When Zayn just lights up a cigarette in silence and doesn't answer, he rolls his eyes and adds, “Or fuck off to the bunks and have Skype sex, I'll tell the others to stay out.”

Zayn shrugs, puffing out a cloud of smoke. “Think Liam said they wouldn't be back until late and that they were gonna stay in the hotel.”

“Okay, then you can have as much Skype sex as you want, don't let me stop you.”

Cracking the smallest of smiles, Zayn shakes his head. “I think I'm good.”

“Suit yourself,” Louis says as he pulls the blanket tighter around himself. It's an old blanket, one he brought from home – like, home-home, his mum's house in Doncaster – when he moved out, and it smells accordingly; an unattractive mix of cigarette smoke, weed smoke, various food stains and maybe a hint of beer. If Louis was even the slightest bit domesticated, he'd have thrown it in the washer ages ago.

“So,” Zayn says in _the voice_ ; the voice he only ever uses when he wants to _talk_ , as in actually _talk_ , not just exchange pointless chitchat. It doesn't happen too often, only when it's just the two of them, usually after darkness has fallen, sometimes when they're drunk, mostly when they're high. “Harry said he finally told you about him and Nick.”

And that explains _the voice_. Louis shrugs, puts on a nonchalant face. “Yeah. What about it?”

“Don't give me that shit,” Zayn says with a snort that's entirely stripped of humour. 

“What shit?”

“You know, it's a good thing you never made it to drama school, because you'd be shit at it. Christ, you don't even have a decent poker face.”

“I do, too!” Louis insists, mildly offended. After a few years of proper education, he'd have made an _excellent_ drama teacher.

“You don't,” Zayn says flatly. “You and Harry were hot and heavy for, what, two years?” Louis shrugs again and Zayn nods. “Then he went off and got together with someone everyone in England knows you can't stand and didn't even tell you about it until after it was over, and you're trying to make me believe you don't give a fuck?”

“I didn't say I don't give a fuck,” Louis says, eyes darting around, fixating on everything but Zayn's face. “Just isn't my place to have any opinions on where Harry puts his dick anymore, is it?”

“They were together for over a year, so don't you think it has more to do with where he puts his heart than where he puts-”

“Oh, come on.” Louis laughs loudly, maybe a bit incredulously. “Don't go all Nicholas Sparks on me, Zayn. Okay, alright, so maybe they were _in love_ or whatever it is the kids call it these days. Still isn't my place to have any opinions on it, is it? Harry can be with whoever he wants and so can I and it's nobody's place to meddle. It's one of the perks of being single.”

“Yeah, but apparently the only one of the two of you who actually understood that concept was Harry.”

Louis leans forward and narrows his eyes, fixes them on Zayn. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Zayn smacks his lips. “What do you think it means, Lou? It's been over one and a half years since you and Harry broke up and you haven't as much as looked at anyone seriously since then. Actually, you've barely looked at anyone at all, serious or not.”

“So I can't be arsed to pick up a girl three times a week and because of that, you think you have the right to start insinuating shit that isn't even close to being true?” Louis snaps.

“I'm not insinuating anything, I'm telling you pretty straight forward what I think,” Zayn says as he rises to his feet, leaving the half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. “I'm gonna go get some air, wanna come with?”

Louis shakes his head, lips pressed tightly together. “No, thanks, I'm good here,” he says, voice maybe a bit cooler than usual.

“You may wanna at least crack a window, it's getting a little stuffy in here,” Zayn says.

“Would have been better if you'd actually put that thing out instead of just leaving it there,” Louis says, gesturing towards the cigarette and the thin column of smoke that's rising from it. Zayn doesn't say anything, just smiles wryly before he walks out. Sighing, Louis reaches for the cigarette, but instead of putting it out, he finishes it with slow drags, his eyes staring absentmindedly at the wall.

Zayn's right, of course he is, and Louis can admit that in the privacy of his own head. The way things ended between him and Harry left little to no room for proper closure. It was one small fight after the other that eventually turned into big fights and finally exploded in one gigantic fight, all of which stemmed from the same issue: Louis' reluctance to come out. 

He didn't want to come out; not alone, not with Harry, not at all. 

And Harry was understanding in the beginning, but as time went on and the constant lies and the constant sneaking around, never being able to go out on proper dates, never being able to just be a normal couple whilst surrounded by other people, started getting to them, Harry became less understanding until he finally put his foot down and told Louis that either they came out, or they were done. And Louis chose his pride and his freedom, saw that as more important than anything, even more than the distraught, angry, terrified and _hurt beyond belief_ boy standing in front of him in nothing but his underwear, hair ruffled and eyes puffy with sleep.

Louis doesn't necessarily regret the decision he made. He wasn't ready to come out, wasn't ready to prove everyone right by admitting that yes, he does occasionally like to have someone stuff their dick in his mouth and then preferably have that someone ejaculate there. He does, however, regret _how_ it ended, with a, “ _You know what? Fine! I'm moving out, have a nice life with whoever the bloody hell you can find that isn't as much of a coward as me and can give you what you want!_ ” and Harry glaring at him with eyes that were brimming with unshed tears.

Even now, way after the fact, the mental image of Harry's face when Louis slammed the door in his face makes his stomach twist with raw guilt.

They never got any closure and by the time they stopped actively fighting every time they were forced to be in the same room together, a thick wall of stiff politeness had descended between them, and as far as Louis is concerned, that wall is still there. Admittedly, it's been marginally reduced over the last six or seven months, but it's still there, leaving no room for the two of them to sit down and talk and for Louis to apologise.

And maybe that's part of the reason he's still so very, very single – he still feels guilty about the way his last relationship ended, still carries it around like an absent, yet painfully present, burden that gives the thought of finding someone new a sour taste that he'd rather get rid of than inspect any closer.

The cigarette's down to its last inch and Louis stubs it out in the ashtray before he leans back against the cushions and closes his eyes. He reckons he could fall asleep here; it's warm and it's comfortable and it's quiet, and it wouldn't be the first time he opted to spend the night in the lounge rather than in his bunk. The bunk is far softer, though. Plus the air there isn't polluted with cigarette smoke.

Before he can make a decision, the distinctive sound of Niall's laughter carries through the bus, though, and when Louis opens his eyes, he's greeted by the sight of an apparently drunk Niall leaning his shoulder against the wall.

“You're back early,” Louis says. “Thought you weren't coming back until late.”

Niall rolls his eyes, looks part irritated, part amused when he sits down next to Louis. “That was until Liam got so pissed they basically had to carry him out and Harry found a bloke he wanted to bring back. I wasn't gonna stay back all by meself, so here I am.”

Louis' stomach feels a bit empty all of a sudden. “Harry brought someone back?”

“Mhm. Tall guy, beardy, good-looking.” Niall grins wickedly. “If the size of his feet was anything to judge by, Harry won't be able to walk properly for a week.”

Louis grimaces a little. “Nice,” is all he can think to say.

“Yeah.” Niall's smile softens. “You could come with us sometimes, you know. Maybe find someone bring back yourself, yeah? When the hell did you last see any action that wasn't your own hand or that bright blue dildo you travel around with?”

Louis' jaw drops and all thoughts of Harry vanish from his head for a moment. “I- it's- you went through my _things_?” he splutters. He can feel his cheeks blush neon pink, which is just so entirely not his thing, but _really_? Fair enough that the five of them live on top of each other for a better part of the year, but there are still boundaries that should be respected, aren't there? Some sense of privacy? There should be.

Niall doesn't appear to find anything at all wrong or awkward about the situation as he's just cackling loudly, seemingly oblivious to Louis' discomfort. “You left it next to your pillow one night in the beginning of the tour, was a little hard to _not_ see it.” Then his expression turns serious, so fast it's almost creepy. “But, just so you know, if you ever stick that thing up your bum while I'm anywhere nearby, I'll smack you around the face with it.”

Louis huffs, a little petulant. “As if I've ever used it when I wasn't alone. Pervert.”

Smiling once more, Niall gives Louis' leg a pat. “Attaboy.” It goes quiet for a moment. “So I ran into Zayn outside. He said to ask you about ' _your reluctance to get on with your life romance-wise_ ', but I think I kinda already did, indirectly, and even if I asked you directly, I don't think you'd give me a proper answer, so I won't.”

This time, it's Louis' time to say, “Attaboy.”

“Really, though,” Niall carries on, “I haven't thought about it, not really, but now that Zayn's mentioned it, you haven't-”

Louis makes a gesture with his hand, effectively shutting Niall up. “Yes, yes, I'm all alone, single and depressed, and I'm gonna die a lonely spinster with twelve cats.”

Niall's eyelids are drooping a little, as if he's on the verge of falling asleep, when he answers with a pensive, “As long as you're fine with it.”

Louis most certainly is _not_ fine with the prospect of dying a lonely spinster with twelve cats. He has more class and dignity than that. Most of the time. He doesn't think Niall's present enough to delve into a conversation about that, though, so he just smiles and gives his shoulder a nudge. “Time for bed, yeah?”

“Was supposed to stay in the hotel,” Niall says as Louis helps him to his feet.

“What are you doing out here, then?” Louis asks. He lets the blanket slide off his shoulders as he puts one hand on Niall's back to steady him, guiding him in direction of the bunks.

“My room's next to Liam's and opposite of Harry's,” Niall says, a disgusted tilt plastered to his lips. “Didn't wanna have to listen to Liam throw up and Harry have sex all night. They're both so loud, have you noticed?”

Louis has noticed, yes. The first time he witnessed Liam throwing up as a result of too much drinking, he'd genuinely been worried he'd have to call for an ambulance, the way Liam kept yammering and growling in between retching heaves. And of _bloody course_ he's noticed that Harry can be loud during sex.

He helps Niall get settled in his bunk, grinning to himself when he turns off the light and a moment later, Niall's started snoring. Louis reckons it'd be nice to be able to fall asleep that quickly. Like a baby. Unfortunately, Louis is nothing like a baby, not when it comes to sleeping at least, and it's nearing dawn by the time he finally doses off and falls into a restless sleep that's filled with blurry, resounding dreams about him and about Harry, about their past, about their present and about their could-have-been present.

*

Harry's limping the next day. If Louis hadn't already known what kinds of activities Harry engaged in last night, he probably wouldn't have thought twice about it, would just have assumed it was caused by a stubbed toe or a blister on his heel. But he does know and it's therefore impossible to not take notice of the easiness Harry carries himself with, the sated look in his eyes that only comes from having been well and thoroughly fucked by someone who knew what they were doing. 

Louis knows he's being irritating, maybe even downright creepy, and definitely way out of line, but throughout the day, he can't seem to stop his eyes from searching out Harry, looking for any signs that could indicate _exactly_ what he and his tall, beardy, good-looking partner got up to. But there are no marks on Harry's skin, nowhere visible anyway, and other than the slight limp, he seems to be in good physical shape. 

And that's good; it's good that Harry found someone to hook up with that gave him what he wanted. It's good, it really is, and the rational part of Louis knows that. 

The not so rational part of him, however, has a deep and completely unwarranted desire to hunt down this guy and give him a proper earful about taking advantage of famous popstars who's only barely out of a year-long relationship. It's rude and it's slimy, is all. Louis doesn't much care for rude and slimy people who take advantage of his... bandmate slash ex-boyfriend slash kinda-but-not-really friend.

They play for a sold out stadium that evening, they sing Mamma Mia and Liam makes a comment about how he finds it funny how late it gets before darkness falls. Louis throws a few subtle glances in Harry's direction throughout the show, but the limping seem to have subsided and he seems to be his normal happy, sparkly self, and that's... good.

It's good until the show is over, at least. Liam and Zayn lead the way through the backstage area, closely followed by Niall and Harry while Louis walks a few paces behind. There's a corner coming up ahead and Liam, Zayn and Niall disappear around it. Harry stops, however, the very moment he and Louis are the only ones left in the corridor, and turns around, waiting for Louis to catch up with him.

Louis draws to a halt right in front of Harry. “What?”

“Is there something in my teeth?” Harry asks, crossing his arms over his chest. Maybe it's something Louis is imagining, but he thinks he detects a flicker of something defensive in Harry's eyes.

“I- no.” He blinks. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you've been looking at me all day and I figured you had to have a reason.”

Oh. Well, then. Smacking his lips, Louis mirrors Harry by folding his arms across his chest. “Did you have fun last night?” he asks.

Harry doesn't flinch, his face doesn't contract with embarrassment like Louis thought it would. He just remains completely and utterly passive. “I did, yeah.”

“Good.” Louis licks along the seam of his lips, diverts his eyes to the floor for a moment in an attempt to buy himself some time to gather his face into an expression of nonchalance. “What was his name?”

“Andreas.”

“You gonna see him again?”

Harry scoffs in an entirely uncharacteristic manner; too cold, too mocking. “Of course not.”

“Why's that a given? One-night stands on the road are suddenly your thing now?”

Harry looks less than impressed. “You're talking like it's the first time it's happened.”

“Isn't it?” Louis blurts out in a moment of idiocy. He regrets the words as soon as they're out, and he regrets them even more when Harry looks like he wants to burst out in scornful laughter. It's so unlike Harry, so unlike any of the traits Louis knows him to possess.

“No,” Harry simply says.

“Okay.” Louis shuffles his feet, stuffs his hands in his pockets and clears his throat. The sound ricochets weakly between the walls, serving as a reminder of how alone they are. “Is it like a... rebound-thing, then?” he asks after a beat of silence. “You're upset about Nick, so you go around hooking up with random blokes in bars to, like, comfort yourself or whatever? Is that it?”

Some of the coldness seem to drain out of Harry and he suddenly looks more tired and exasperated than anything else. “No, that's not it.”

“No?”

“No. I'm not upset about Nick; I told you the day it happened, we agreed to end things and we're still friends, it's not-” He cuts himself off and shakes his head. “I'm not rebounding with anyone, I'm just properly single and not busy recovering from a breakup for the first time since I was sixteen and I'm enjoying that. End of story.”

And just like that, he's managed to make Louis feel like a paranoid twat. Of course Harry would enjoy regaining a type of freedom he hasn't had since he was a bloody _teenager_ , it makes all the sense in the world.

“Right,” he says to Harry's shoulder. “Of course you are.”

“Yeah.” Harry pulls out his phone from his pocket and looks down on it for a moment. “I have to get going.”

“What, you've got another stranger waiting for you in your room?” Louis says, his voice dripping with sour bile.

Harry's eyes narrow until they're nothing more than two tiny slithers. “No, but I'm going back to London for the night,” he says coolly.

It's like something's buzzing inside Louis' head, something he can't switch off, and it crawls like a hot itch under his skin, infuriating and maddening, and he doesn't know _why_ , but he can't seem to turn off the inexplicable urge to keep flinging sly digs at Harry. It gives him an ice cold, nauseating feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. “Because you've got another stranger waiting for you in your flat?” he says. “Or maybe there are more than one, if that's what you're into these days.”

“What the hell is your problem now?” Harry asks sharply, taking a step closer to Louis. He seems an awful lot taller up close like this. And his nose seems bigger.

“I don't have a problem.”

“So you're just being a dick for no reason?”

“Maybe I am.”

Harry lets his arms fall to hang along his sides and Louis can _hear_ him grit his teeth together, like a rusty nail being scraped against smooth concrete. “Why do you have a problem with me having sex, Louis?” he asks slowly.

Letting out a loud, curt laugh, Louis sneers up at Harry. “I don't. Go fuck every male resident in every bloody capital in all of Europe if that's what you want. By the sounds of it, you're well on your way already, so why stop now?”

Louis hasn't seen Harry properly angry on many occasions. He'll usually walk away from the argument before he gets too riled up, says it's because he doesn't like fighting or for people to see him mad. But Harry's angry now, his eyes dark and his eyebrows drawn tightly together as he glares down at Louis, and Louis is fairly certain that Harry has no intentions of walking away this time. He's gonna stay and he's gonna do that thing where he leans in close to Louis' face and mumble-yells to make sure that Louis is the only one who hears him. They're still alone, weirdly enough, but Harry's not gonna resort to actual yelling. Louis knows that.

“You really should consider stop talking now,” Harry says lowly, his chin trembling with what Louis suspects in suppressed anger. “I know you love the sound of your own voice, but it's making my head hurt and my ears bleed right now, because you're sticking your nose into something you have _no_ business sticking your nose into. If I want to have sex with a new person in every city we go to, I will; if I want to have sex with _two_ people in every city we go to, I will; if I wanna partake in a fucking orgy in every city we go to, _I will_!”

“Oh, yes, of course you will, and the newspapers are gonna _love_ that, aren't they?”

“Apparently not as much as you're gonna hate it.”

“Oh, get the fuck over yourself, Harry,” Louis snaps. “I don't care if you-”

Harry cuts him off by shoving him backwards against the wall, making him stumble over his own feet. “ _Then why are we even having this conversation right now?_ ” he hisses, the tip of his nose brushing against Louis'.

“You tell me, you're the one who started it!” Louis shoots back, staring right into Harry's eyes.

“No, _you're_ the one who started it by turning a perfectly civil conversation into an argument about whether or not _I_ should have sex!” And there comes the mumble-yelling.

Louis doesn't bother mumble-yelling, he just yells. Loudly. “I didn't turn anything into an argument! I just voiced my opinion and _you're_ the one who blew it completely out of proportion!”

“Because you had no right whatsoever to voice your opinion! Actually, you don't even have the right to _have_ an opinion! You lost that right when-”

“You can't fucking tell me I'm not allowed to have an opinion, you long-haired hippie freak!”

“When that opinion is about my _sex life_ , you bet your arse I'm allowed to tell you you're not allowed to have it!”

“And how exactly are you planning on enforcing that, oh wise one?”

“By hoping there's some common decency left in you that'll respect it!”

Louis' hands are shaking, his lips are trembling and his throat feels dry. Swallowing harshly, his eyes flicker down to Harry's lips. They've turned white with anger, but they're full and shining with spit and _God_ , Louis' brain carries him right back to the last time they'd had sex, because Harry's lips looked the exact same that day. The only difference is that Harry's taller now than he was then.

Their noses are still only an inch or two away from touching and every time they exhale, their breaths mingle. It feels familiar, painfully so, and Louis can feel all the anger inside him melt into a puddle of cold indifference.

“Whatever,” he says, his eyes trained on his own feet. The indifference translates well to his voice. “Go back to London, enjoy being single, but don't come crying to me when you end up with five different STDs to deal with.”

“If I was gonna go crying to someone, do you really think that someone would be you?” Harry asks calmly.

Somehow, those are the words that end up being the lowest point of the last fifteen minutes; they puncture a hole somewhere in Louis' chest. It feels like it's awfully close to his heart. “I suppose not,” he says, still looking at his feet.

Harry doesn't say anything, but he doesn't step back or even indicate that he's planning on doing so either. It's still quiet, still only the two of them there, and Louis wonders why no one has come looking for them yet.

“You can be such a prick sometimes,” Harry says eventually. “I always thought you'd grow out of it when you got older, but apparently not.”

Louis attempts a laugh. It fails pretty miserably. “I'm in it for life,” he says. Again, Harry doesn't answer, and Louis finally looks up. 

They're standing so close together that if either one of them take one tiny step forward, their bodies will be aligned, and Louis... Louis doesn't know how he feels about that. So he doesn't think about it. Instead he blinks, looks directly into Harry's eyes, which have gone back to their normal greenish colour. Louis likes him better like this; calm and quiet and much more Harry. It's fallen far too silent, though; so silent that Louis swears he can hear his own heartbeat.

“Why the hell are you two taking so long? We're all ready to leave if you could-” Niall stops dead in his tracks, one hand on the corner wall. Somehow, it suddenly seems like the silence has grown more compact. Louis realises, a little too late, that the position he and Harry are standing in probably looks somewhat compromising to an outsider. “What's... what are you doing?” Niall asks.

Harry's the one who steps back, creating some space between himself and Louis. “Nothing,” he says, offering Niall a smile that's so fake he'd probably be arrested for falsifying a trademarked picture if the police had seen him.

“Obviously,” Niall says dryly.

“It's nothing, Niall,” Louis says, pushing himself off the wall. He doesn't wait around for Niall to send him more suspicious looks before he walks past him with quick steps, down the rest of the corridor and through the double doors at the end of it that lead outside.

Same as the night before, he stays on the bus, doesn't much feel like sleeping in a sterile-smelling hotel bed where the sheets are stiff and the pillow isn't moulded to perfectly fit the shape of his head. None of the other four are there, though. He learns from Alberto that Niall and Zayn got on the same plane as Harry to fly back to London for the night, and he silently curses them for not asking if he'd like to come along, too. A night in his own bed would be nice, especially now that his head is pounding and his emotions are a bit all over the place, thanks to Harry.

*

It would seem that Harry's policy on how to deal with someone after an awkward slash solemn slash anger-infested encounter, is to treat that someone like air. In this case, Louis is that someone and thus he's the one who gets to be treated like air. And that's fine, that's perfectly fucking fine; if Harry wants to play the most childish game on planet earth, so can Louis, and Liam and his judgemental glares can go fuck themselves with a cactus.

They get through two shows in Copenhagen, where Louis lets out some pent-up frustration by throwing orange juice on a fan who throws water at him, before they have a couple of days off. For the first time in almost two years, Louis is supremely happy when he gets to go home and have something not related to One Direction to occupy his mind.

He feels proper happy and excited when he's sat on a chair, talking about his love for Doncaster and for the club he spent his entire childhood and most of his teenage years actively supporting. When he's home and has his head focused on the fact that within a couple of weeks, he's gonna be part owner of said club, it's easy to not think about anything else, such as the fact that he has a whole other life to get back to in a matter of hours, a life where football is just a fun pass-time, and not something he has the time to put any actual passion or _real_ effort into. 

But it's easy to pretend, if only for a scarce amount of time, so he allows himself to do just that: Pretend. Pretend that this is his life, pretend that he has a fairly regular job, pretend that his biggest concern is to decide on what to have for dinner, pretend that he doesn't have to spend three quarters of the year in confined spaces with his ex-boyfriend, pretend that he doesn't get a falling sensation in his belly every time his mind drifts to Harry. 

Pretend that he doesn't fall asleep two nights in a row wondering if Harry's in bed with another faceless guy who'll be gone by the time the sun rises, and that the thought makes his insides boil. It's just out of concern, he tells himself, he's just worried about a kinda-but-not-really friend. Because Harry's got a huge heart and that's usually a good thing, but it also means he trusts far too easily, so for all Louis knows, Harry could eventually end up taking someone home who turns out to be a complete freak or worse, a dangerous freak.

As weird as things are between them, Louis doesn't want Harry hurt. He _desperately_ doesn't want Harry hurt.

They all fly in to France together Friday afternoon, though, and Harry seems to be doing just fine. A little tired perhaps, but that goes for Zayn and Liam as well, so. At some point during the short flight, Louis has half a thought of asking Harry what he's been up to and who's being up to it with since they left Denmark. Then he remembers that he's supposedly not allowed to even think about who Harry's doing what with, and since he doesn't much fancy the thought of getting another mumble-yelling directed at him in plain view of the rest of the band plus several crew members, he refrains.

Louis stays on the bus that night, mostly because a hoard of fans have gathered outside the hotel and he just wants to get a good night's sleep without being woken up by ear-shattering screams every other minute. He says so to the other four when they're sitting in the car on the way back from the stadium, and Zayn mumbles out an agreement while Liam says he has some business to attend to that he'd rather be alone for. Niall cackles loudly at that, shoves Liam's shoulder and says that if a man can't own up to his plans of having Skype sex with his girlfriend, he shouldn't be having Skype sex with his girlfriend at all. Harry remains silent.

The moment they've stepped onto the bus and the door's closed behind them, Zayn, bless his heart, scampers off to his bunk and returns moments later with a bag of weed in his hand. They settle in the lounge and Louis watches as Zayn rolls up two joints, one slightly larger than the other, then hands Louis the smaller one.

“Don't give me that look,” Zayn says and holds up a lighter, waits for Louis to stick the joint between his lips before he lights it for him. “I give you any more than that and you either start crying about wanting your mummy or you try humping the couch.”

Louis blows a thick cloud of smoke in Zayn's face and grins. “That happened _one_ time and I was drunk off my arse.”

“It's happened three times; you were _drunk_ one time,” Zayn corrects.

Fifteen minutes later, Louis is staring out into nothing. It's probably something of a safety hazard, he reckons, for this much smoke to be floating around in a very limited space with very limited amounts of air. He suggests they crack open a window, to which Zayn agrees, but neither of them follow through. Okay. Louis is cool with dying. He feels a little dead already, but in a good way, like he could leave this world and he'd be at complete and utter peace with that. It's a nice thought. Not the part about dying, obviously, but that if a meteor was to crash down on the bus right now and kill him, he wouldn't have any unresolved issues that'd force him to come back as a ghost.

“Bro, you have so many unresolved issues that you could cover your entire flat with them and there would still be some left,” Zayn says lazily. So apparently Louis is thinking out loud now. “Yeah, you are. You should stop. It's annoying.” Honestly, fuck Zayn. “No, thanks.”

Louis yawns and rubs his eyes. “I'm going to bed. You coming?”

“Coming where?”

“To bed.”

“With you?”

“Sure, if you want to.”

“No thanks.”

“Alright.” Louis blinks. “Why not?”

“Don't wanna invoke the wrath of Harry.”

“Harry doesn't have any wrath that can be invoked.”

“Niall said he saw you two fighting after the last show in Stockholm.”

“Niall has a big mouth.”

“He's not a liar, though.”

Louis scowls. “I'm going to bed now. Bye.” He walks away with slow, sluggish steps and ignores Zayn call of, “You're being a total idiot, Louis!” Honestly. Zayn could have least have come up with something more original.

*

Louis figures he probably shouldn't be laughing, but he totally is, and he's not alone. Niall's rolling around on the floor, Zayn keeps doubling over and Liam's face has gone red as a tomato. Harry's scowling at each of them in turn.

“It was an honest mistake!” he exclaims for the fiftieth time.

“You favourited a pic of a girl's business on Twitter,” Niall says in between laughs. “On your very _public_ Twitter account, no less.”

“And don't tell me you actually wanted to lick her clean,” Zayn chimes in. There's an evil glint in his eyes, matching the sadistic tone of amusement in his voice.

“I didn't mean to favourite it,” Harry insists, looking a little desperate as he stares at each of them in turn, as if he absolutely needs them to believe him. “I was just looking at... other things and it popped up and I don't know how I-”

“You go to Twitter for porn?” Louis cuts him off. He immediately regrets the decision to speak up when Harry's eyes widen in what can only be interpreted as shock.

“I- no, I don't go to Twitter for porn,” he says after a tick of silence, and he looks a little less stressed out than before.

Louis grins. “Then what were you doing in what was clearly a porn-tag?”

“I- it wasn't- I was-” Harry clamps his mouth shut and then plonks down on the bed next to where Liam's sitting, and crosses his arms. He looks a lot like a petulant child. The resemblance grows stronger when his lips form a little pout. “ _Fine_ ,” he says. “Fine, okay, so I went to Twitter for porn. So what?”

Niall makes a sound of disgust. “What kind of twenty year-old are you?”

Harry grunts. “The kind who didn't have his porn collection perfected before he turned thirteen.”

Zayn and Liam snort in unison. Harry looks ridiculously pleased with himself.

“And now you think favouriting a bunch of actual pussies is gonna undo the damage?” Louis asks.

“Maybe,” Harry says, shrugging. “They're cute pussies.”

“Put that on the list of things I never thought I'd hear Harry say,” Liam says, and that sets them off again.

“You all suck,” Harry says sourly, standing up on his feet. “And you're childish. I'm going to my room.” The way he points his nose in the air when he strolls out only makes them laugh harder.

*

The thing about people who are in a good mood ninety-nine percent of the time, is that it's so easy to tell when something's off with them. Zayn, who puts on a despondent face more often than not, can easily use that to hide it when he's actually feeling down. Harry, however, loses the casual chipperness he usually carries around when something or someone puts him down, and when that happens, it's so very easy for eyes that have witnessed the same change before to detect it.

For Louis, who was once the reason for Harry's loss of chipperness, it takes less than five seconds to recognise the look on Harry's face and conclude that something's wrong. They're on their way to the stadium in Porto for a sound check for the last show of the European leg of the tour. Liam's on the phone with his mum, Niall's playing what appears to be an intense round of Candy Crush, Zayn has his eyes directed out the window, and Harry... Harry's fiddling with the rings on his fingers, his eyes are downcast and in the seven or eight seconds Louis keeps his eyes on him, he swallows no less than three times, as if he's forcing unwanted emotions from clawing their way to the surface.

There's nothing he can (or will) say here and now, but he thinks he will later, especially since none of the others seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary and therefore probably won't talk to Harry either. It's his duty as Harry's kinda-but-not-really friend. Yes.

It's hot that night and Louis gives himself a mental high five for having opted to wear a short-sleeved top. He grins at Zayn more than once, can tell even across the stage how uncomfortable he is in the jumper he's wearing throughout the first half of the show. He grins a bit at Harry, too, but for entirely different reasons. Because Harry prances around with a bright pink bow on his head and in the eyes of fans who only see what they want to see, he probably looks like the epitome of a cheerful pop star who's exactly where he wants to be.

The ride back to the hotel is loud. Liam, still high on adrenaline, wants to go through every step of the show and Niall's so wired he participates with enough enthusiasm to supply power to a medium sized house, while Zayn lets his phone provide a very thumpy soundtrack. Louis passes the time by eating candy and curl up the wrappers and throw them at Liam's head. Liam, disappointingly enough, is too busy talking to reprimand Louis.

A few fans are waiting outside the hotel when they get there. Liam and Niall decide to stop to sign a few autographs and take some pictures while Louis, Zayn and Harry decline under the excuse that they're tired and wanna get to bed. It's not a lie, so Louis doesn't feel too guilty. The fans get a highly energised Niall anyway; surely that's a far more in demand attraction than a droopy-eyed, absentminded Louis.

“You staying on the bus?” Zayn asks him when they climb out of the car. It's dark, but the air is warm and a little humid and it smells like summer. The distant sounds of screaming and laughing fans and an occasional car driving by on the street disrupts the illusion of a peaceful summer night, but it'll do.

Throwing a quick sideways glance at Harry, who's busy hoisting an apparently heavy bag up on his shoulder, Louis shakes his head. “I think I'm in the mood for a bigger bed tonight. I'll come with you, though, have to pick up some things.”

It's gotten to the point in their career where all hotel rooms look the same to Louis; doesn't matter if they're big or small, if they're dark or light, if they're in northern Europe or eastern Asia. They're all the same. Anonymous, clean, comfortable on paper, but severely lacking in the warmth that'd make them comfortable in reality. This one's no exception. The bed's big and the mattress is soft, though, and he's almost tempted to lie down and go to sleep immediately, despite it being barely ten o'clock.

But he has a mission to get to, so sleep's gonna have to wait. He's sweaty, though, and his hair desperately needs a wash and since he doesn't wanna repulse Harry by showing up on his door smelling like a cheap gym, he discards his clothes and jumps in the shower. He takes his time, washes himself thoroughly, massages the conditioner properly into his hair the way Lou told him to instead of just splashing it on like he usually does, and has a quick wank because he's a filthy rich adult and therefore he can. Afterwards, he puts on his pyjama pants and a t-shirt, but doesn't bother with socks before he grabs his key card and heads out the door.

He asked Alberto earlier what room Harry was staying in, which earned him a befuddled glance and a question of why he'd wanna know that before receiving the actual answer. Seven eighty-one, three doors down from Louis'. Louis hesitates with his fist raised, knuckles millimetres away from the door, attempting to figure out how to go about asking Harry what's bothering him. Maybe he could try simply being upfront for once. And if that fails, he has the option of winding Harry up so much he explodes and spills his thoughts and feelings all over the floor.

With that solid plan in mind, Louis knocks three times, waits a few seconds and then says, “It's me.”

The door opens to reveal an almost naked Harry. He's only wearing his boxers and his hair is wet, presumably from just having gotten out of the shower. The only light sources in the room are the lamp on the nightstand and Harry's Mac, which is placed on the bed, leaving the room mostly dark, but not so dark it hides the redness around Harry's eyes. It could of course have the simple explanation that he got shampoo in his eyes earlier, but something tells Louis that that isn't the case.

He sits down on the bed, back leaned against the large headboard, and watches as Harry crawls in under the duvet without a word, not even a question of what Louis wants. Maybe he already knows. Closing the laptop, Harry places it on the nightstand before he slides further down on the bed and lies down, face turned towards the side of Louis' thigh.

“I know you've got something you wanna ask, so go ahead,” he says quietly.

“And here I thought I was being subtle,” Louis says with a smile that goes unrequited. When Harry doesn't say anything, Louis sighs. “No time for joking, then. Alright.” He purses his lips for a moment. “What's going on with you today? You've been out of it since the sound check.”

Harry doesn't reply in so many words, merely reaches for his phone, taps in the code to unlock it and then hands it to Louis.

Louis accepts it, raising his eyebrows. “What do you want me to do with it?”

“Check my convo with Nick.”

Nick. Of course Harry's bad mood would have something to do with Nick. _Of bloody course_. Louis wants to snarl. Instead he taps on the message-app and opens the conversation that's labelled _Nick Grimshaw_ followed by a broken heart-icon. Louis sighs again. Harry's so very much like himself sometimes that it makes Louis' chest ache.

He doesn't have to read many messages before he gets a vague idea of what's going on. It's not a long conversation that's taken place, anyway and for the most part, it's one-sided, Nick being the one who does a majority of the talking. From what Louis can gather, Nick's on a day-long date with some guy he met through work and he's practically giving Harry a detailed description of everything that happens. The last text came in twenty minutes ago.

' _gotta go now, taking it to the bedroom, talk to you later !_ ' it says, followed by a kissing emoji.

Sighing heavily, Louis locks the phone and hands it back to Harry. “You know I don't like Nick,” he says. “I never have, always thought he was a bit of a pretentious twat, but that right there has to be the douchiest thing I've seen him pull yet.”

“It isn't to be mean that he did it, though,” Harry says and Louis hears, with a twinge of sadness, that there's a hint of a quiver in his voice. “I know him better than you do, Lou, so don't try and turn this into something it's not. He only did it because we agreed to stay friends and now he's doing what friends do – he told me about his date.”

“He didn't have to give you a play by play of it,” Louis says. “If he absolutely had to tell you he was going on a date, he could have just mentioned it in passing instead of-”

“He just tries too hard,” Harry cuts in. “It's not out of malice or... anything that he does it, he's just trying to get back to the way we were before we dated.”

Louis huffs. “Yeah, well, he should have enough experience on his hands to realise that it takes a bit longer than two months for the wounds to heal after a year-long relationship ends.”

“Apparently not for him,” Harry says and... yeah. There's a single tear rolling down his cheek, creating a wet trail as it makes it way down before hitting the pillow and disappearing. “I mean since he's already gone out and found himself a boyfriend who won't be too much of a hassle to come out with.”

Louis heart clenches painfully, a tiny fist closing around it for a split second, and he has to clutch his fists together to keep himself from doing something stupid. Like reach out and stroke Harry's face with a gentle hand or brush his hair away from his forehead. Either one would be a bad idea.

“I'm sorry,” is all he can think of to say. He's terrible at the whole talking-thing.

“I just don't... I don't understand why he even bothered in the first place,” Harry carries on as if he didn't hear Louis. “It wasn't like I wasn't in the same place when we started dating as I am now, he knew all along what my life is and we talked about it, but when I finally told him I wanted to start being seen together in public, go on dates and stuff, he suddenly didn't want it anymore and I-” Louis hears Harry swallow, knows that another tear is probably right around the corner. “I clearly have a type and apparently that type is people who don't want to make sacrifices for me, but who still expect me to make sacrifices for them.”

And- okay, ouch. “I'm sorry,” Louis says again.

Harry doesn't answer at once. Stretching out a hand, he pokes Louis' knee carefully, a distant expression painting his face. “About me and Nick or... or about you and me?” he asks without retracting his finger.

Sucking the inside of his lower lip between his teeth, Louis reaches down to his own knee, right next to where Harry's finger is, and starts tracing mindless patterns. Occasionally, his finger brushes against Harry's. “Both, I guess,” he says, eyes trained on his finger.

That wasn't the answer Harry expected, apparently, because his head snaps up, his eyes meeting Louis' for the first time that night. They look at each other, both expressionless, and as something – a feeling perhaps – starts growing in Harry's still unusually shiny eyes, a pull of gravity yanks weakly at Louis, providing a falling sensation that gives him the feeling of falling forward even though he's still sitting in the exact same position as he has for the last ten minutes.

Harry's the one who looks away first, ducking his head so it's partly buried in the pillow “Why are you here, Lou?” he asks.

“Wanted to make sure you were okay,” Louis says truthfully. “You don't get upset like you've been today often, hardly ever really, so I wanted to check in. That's not so weird, is it?”

“It kinda is,” Harry says, but Louis can see the smile that pulls at his lips. It looks like a pleased one. It falls quiet for a moment before: “But thank you, it's nice of you, considering everything.”

Louis hesitates for a bit before he answers with a quiet, “Yeah, well, even considering everything, it's not like I want you to be unhappy.” Had it been daytime and bright, he probably wouldn't have said it, but it's night and it's mostly dark. Darkness is nice like that, Louis thinks. A blanket of security that provides blind comfort in a way that nothing else can.

Harry moves his finger one tiny inch up so that the pad of it touches the side of Louis' hand. When Louis doesn't say or do anything, he gives his hand a timid stroke, like he's afraid of being pushed away. Louis isn't gonna push Harry away, though, because he can't think of any reasons why he should. Harry's hand is warm and the strokes are familiar, and it's an oddly comforting combination.

“I don't want you to be unhappy either,” Harry says, his finger wrapped loosely around Louis' pinky. “I did, for a while, mostly just because I was hurt over the way we ended things, I guess, but not anymore. I saw that football-thing of yours went through, so... I'm happy for you.”

Louis hums. “Thanks, I think it's gonna be pretty great. More or less a childhood dream come true, you know?”

“Yeah, I feel you,” Harry says. “I'm pretty much living my childhood dream every day, never really wanted anything else the way I wanted this or the way you've wanted football for as long as I've known you.”

Smiling, Louis crooks his finger to hook properly around Harry's. “Which isn't nearly as long as it feels like most days.”

Harry's posture stiffens a bit and he looks up, eyes wide when they connect with Louis'. “That sounded like a bad thing,” he says.

“I- no, it's not a bad thing,” Louis says quickly. “I just mean that we've been through a lot together, the other boys, too, so sometimes it feels like more time has passed than less than four years, is all.”

“Oh. Right.” Harry visibly relaxes, his body returning to its limp, sleepy state. He looks cute like this, Louis thinks; far cuter than any twenty year-old should.

“You going home tomorrow?” he asks.

Harry nods and stifles a yawn before he replies. “To London, yeah. You?”

“No, I'm staying for a few days.”

“To get a tan?” Harry grins. “You're getting a little pasty.”

“I'm tastefully tanned, being all artificially yellow like you is tacky,” Louis says, sticking out his tongue. “But no. There's a pre-season camp for the Rovers going on, so I'm gonna watch that for a bit on Tuesday, maybe kick a few rounds.”

“Hm, that sounds nice.”

“You think it sounds bloody awful.”

“For me, yeah, but it's gonna be nice for you.”

“Yeah, I reckon it is.” Harry swallows back another yawn, and Louis smiles again. “I think I'll leave now, before you fall asleep right in the middle of our conversation and stomp all over my ego.”

“Your ego could do with a bit of stomping,” Harry says as he retracts his hand, leaving Louis' naked and a little cold.

Climbing off the bed and to his feet, Louis straightens out his t-shirt. Harry's looking up at him, eyes shining under heavy eyelids, long hair spread out on the pillow like a halo, cheeks tinted pink from the sun earlier, and once again, Louis thinks to himself that twenty year-old males really aren't supposed to look this _cute_. 

Then again, it's Harry and Harry isn't necessarily what anyone would call an average twenty year-old male.

*

Louis doesn't wanna talk to anyone. He did his duty on Twitter and now he just wants to curl up in bed, curse John Ryan to hell and back, and proceed to get so drunk on expensive gin that he passes out and his memory is wiped of all knowledge, including his own name. There's also a part of him that wants to shed some angry tears, but he might save that particular urge for later, when he's drunk enough that crying is acceptable.

It was only four days ago that he and Harry were talking about how happy Louis was about the takeover, how it was almost like a childhood dream come true, and now... now, after all the press meetings and the conferences and several hours worth of phonecalls and all the paperwork, it's suddenly not gonna happen anymore. It's fallen through and Louis is furious and exasperated, but mostly devastated. Despite having been assured that his involvement with the club and his already existing contract won't change in any way, it feels a bit like a small part of his heart is left broken. 

It's a ridiculous comparison to make, he thinks, because as awful as he feels, it's nothing like an actual heartbreak. But when he's sitting on his bed, still wearing his pyjamas at five in the afternoon, he really doesn't give a flying fuck about what's ridiculous and not as far as feelings go, because ridiculous or not, they're still bloody there and they suck and Louis wants them assassinated.

He's talked to his mum, because that always helps (and because he needed to get a few info details about her wedding), and he's talked to Stan, who shares Louis' devotion to the Rovers, and he's talked to Niall, who's probably the only one of the boys who, at least to a certain extent, understands Louis' love for football. Each phonecall helped a little bit, but not nearly enough to change Louis' decision of throwing himself a pity party in his bedroom. 

By eight o'clock that evening, Louis is so drunk he can't even sit up straight without having the room spin around and around and around until his head's hurting. So he's lying on his back with a bottle of rum clutched to his chest and the tip of a drinking straw in his mouth. It's by far the most comfortable drinking-session Louis has ever participated in and he's feeling mighty proud of himself until he remembers why he's drinking in the first place.

By eleven thirty, Louis is swimming in a pool filled with warm water. Warm, slightly sticky and very ill-smelling water. It reminds him of the swimming lessons he was given as a child. The pool smelled of sweat and old rubber and, for some reason, fish. The pool Louis is in now doesn't smell like fish, it's more like... rotten food. And bile. 

Bile. 

Oh.

Louis moans and blinks his eyes open. He's on his bathroom floor and the ill-smelling water turns out to be vomit. A lot of it. And the entire left side of his head is covered in it. He moans again, but that only makes him gag, so he quickly clamps his mouth shut. He stays where he is for a while, doesn't dare to try and sit up in fear of it only ending in more of his insides spilled all over the floor, and he feels utterly miserable. Now that the buzz has mostly worn off, there's nothing funny about alcohol anymore. It's nothing but pure evil in liquid form.

At some point, maybe after ten minutes, maybe after four hours, he manages to stumble to his feet and get in the shower. There's so much vomit on the floor and it both looks and smells absolutely horrendous, but Louis' everything hurts and he just wants his bed and a glass of water, so he leaves it as it is, figures he can deal with it in the morning.

Crashing into bed with a small groan, Louis buries his face in the pillow and reaches blindly for his phone on the nightstand. His vision is blurry, at best, but he manages to unlock the phone and see that he has six new messages and a missed call. Three of the messages are from his mum, one is from Laura from PR, one is from Liam and the last one is from Harry. The missed call is also from Harry.

Louis is too drunk and too exhausted to try and figure out the implications of that, so he doesn't. Instead he falls into a deep sleep, naked and on top of the covers, and doesn't wake up for thirteen hours, by which time his bum has grown freezing cold and his phone has received another five texts. He only answers the ones from his mum to let her know he's still alive, ignores the rest, and spends a couple of hours eating crisps and watching _the Big Bang Theory_. In the afternoon, when his hangover has faded into a dull throbbing in his head, he takes Mercedes Benz World up on their invitation to come test drive some of their cars in exchange for a photographer taking some pictures of him. It's fun and it takes his mind off things until he returns home and has nothing but silence to keep him company. Again.

*

“I swear to God, if I ever get married, I'm _not_ gonna create a circus like this just to make it happen.” Louis' shirt collar isn't cooperating and it's too goddamned hot, even now that the sun has set, and there are people everywhere, and it's possible that his irritation stems from barely having slept the previous night and doesn't actually have anything to do with the wedding.

Niall snorts and shakes his head, taking a sip of his beer. “Yours is gonna be a bigger circus than this. Hell, it might actually be an actual circus, elephants and all.”

“I went to the circus once when I was a kid and stepped in a pile of elephant poo,” Louis says. “Haven't been much of a fan since then.”

“I think it might have been me who pushed you into that pile.” Lottie comes walking up behind Niall and stops right next to him. “It was payback for you eating all my cotton candy.”

Louis blinks. “You were three. I don't think you'd learned the concept of payback yet.”

“I was an early bloomer,” she says, making Niall snort and Louis grimace.

Champagne isn't exactly what Louis considers prime alcohol, but his mum has taken to shooting him warning looks every time he as much as get close to anything stronger. He reckons maybe telling her about his last alcohol-fuelled adventure had been a mistake. But either way, getting drunk at a family wedding and possibly make an arse of himself in front of his entire family, including his younger sisters, sounds like a poor plan, so sticking to champagne and light beer might not be so bad.

Taking a look around the tent, he spots Liam sitting on a chair with Sophia in his lap, both looking appropriately tipsy. They look happy to get to spend time in each others' company, happy to just sit still and have a mumbling conversation occasionally interrupted by chaste kisses, and Louis allows himself to stare a little longingly for a couple of seconds. An old friend of his mum's that he can't remember the name of keeps throwing glances at Niall, who in his turn takes a huge gulp of his beer and promptly throws himself into conversation with Lottie every time he notices. 

And then there's his grandfather and their next door neighbours and Dan's parents and Lottie's friend Kate and Stan's date and a man he vaguely recalls having been introduced to at one point in his life, but that he has no way of placing.

There are so many people, most of whom he knows, but some of whom are completely unfamiliar. And it's not that he wants to embarrass his mum (or Dan, for that matter) by being rude to her guests, but he just really doesn't feel like spending the whole evening introducing himself to people he'll most likely never see again after tonight. After escaping the claws of an old lady who turns out to be Dan's grandmother and who's adorably, but frustratingly, interested in hearing all about life on the road, Louis grabs a mostly full champagne bottle from the serving table and scampers off to hide in the shadows of the gigantic tree on the outskirts of the lawn.

He sits down with his back leaned against the trunk of the tree and takes a swig from the bottle. The sounds from the party are still clearly audible, but they seem a little more distant from here and he feels comfortably closed off from everything and everyone.

“Hi.”

He _was_ feeling comfortably closed off from everything and everyone. Looking up, he finds Harry standing there, peering down at Louis. He's holding a bottle of Bacardi Strawberry Daiquiri in one hand and his hat in the other.

“Hi,” Louis says. “Didn't know they served Bacardi.”

Harry grins sheepishly. It looks like he's already had a fair few drinks. “They don't, I brought my own, just in case it was an all champagne and cider-party, which it turned out it was.”

“Not a fan of hard liquor my mum,” Louis says.

“Yeah. Mind if I sit down?”

“Gonna risk getting grass stains on that fancy pair of trousers you're wearing?”

“I'll buy a new pair if they get ruined,” Harry says as he slumps down right next to Louis.

Louis snorts. “You're so financially responsible.”

“I doubt a pair of trousers is gonna wipe me out.” He screws the Bacardi-bottle open and gulps down an impressive amount in one go before he lowers it to the ground. “You're looking pretty fancy, too,” he then says.

Louis smiles, pulls at the collar of his shirt. It's been itchy since about half an hour after he put it on. “At least I know how to button up my shirt.”

“Hey, it's a _look_ ,” Harry insists. “I'm making a statement.”

“Didn't your mum ever tell you that weddings aren't the place to make fashion statements?”

“Actually, yeah, she told me off when she first saw me today, said I should do at least one more button.”

“And you didn't listen? Terrible manners, Harry.”

Harry's expression changes at that, the smile fading and a look of despondence growing in its place. “Says the one who never returned my phonecalls or even responded to my texts and thus left me wondering if he'd died,” he says.

Louis purses his lips and diverts his eyes to the ground. He plucks a couple of grass straws and rolls them between two fingers. “Why would you think I'd died?” he asks.

“Because I heard what happened and because I know you, so I know you either spent the entire day in bed, not eating and not drinking anything at all, or you spent the entire day in bed, drinking way too much.”

“Might have had a drink or two,” Louis says with a humourless laugh. “I didn't die, though, so I reckon all's good.”

“I guess.” Louis jumps when he feels Harry's hand on his lower thigh all of a sudden, the unexpected touch sending a tiny shock wave of adrenaline through him. Harry offers a tentative smile. “I'm really sorry,” he says. “I know it meant a lot to you, the deal and the... everything.”

 _Doesn't matter now, does it?_ and _It's not that big a deal_ are answers that lie on the tip of his tongue, but in the end, all he says is, “Yeah, it did.”

“And it's not gonna happen now? At all? It's all gone?”

Louis nods and leans his head back against the tree, looks up at the branches looming over them. “It's all gone,” he says.

He hears Harry sigh, deeply and somehow apologetically. “I'm sorry,” he says, giving Louis' thigh a squeeze before he pulls his hand back.

“Just life, innit?” Louis says before he tips the champagne bottle against his lips and swallows down no less than seven mouthfuls. “What have you been up to lately? Been in LA?”

“Yeah, catching up with friends mostly,” Harry says. “I like it there, I think I wanna live there properly whenever this is all comes to an end, but at the same time I don't think I'd ever be able to leave England for good.”

“It's home, England's home,” Louis says with a shrug. “You can settle down wherever in the world you want, but I reckon England's always gonna be home no matter what.”

“Maybe,” Harry says. He drinks a bit more from his bottle, then offers it to Louis, who declines. “You sure?”

“Think I'll try and stay relatively sober, at least until there are a little less people around.”

Harry hums in agreement. “Maybe not such a bad idea. Might have stuck to it myself if it wasn't too late.”

“Why is it too late? Did you just feel like getting drunk or do you have some sorrows you're trying to drown?”

“A little bit of both, I guess,” Harry says easily, a serene smile stretching across his face as he bumps his shoulder into Louis'. “Been a little while since I got drunk and this whole thing with Nick is still... what it is. Figured a wedding was a good enough excuse to do something about it. Might find someone to hook up with, too, if there are anyone single here except for that woman who kept hitting on me after Niall turned her down.”

“Don't fancy being someone's second choice?”

Harry's smile grows wider, turns almost a little wolfish. “Not particularly, no, and contrary to popular belief, I don't fancy women twice my age either.”

Louis wants to make a comment about how Harry however does fancy _men_ twice his age. He doesn't, though, figures it'll possibly make Harry think he's making fun of him and Nick, which would just be all sorts of bad. “Well, then I'm sorry to break it to you, but I don't think there are anyone here who fits your taste,” he says instead.

“No?” Harry wiggles his eyebrows. “You're here, aren't you?”

“ _What_?” Louis stares at Harry, part shocked, part horrified. He's not horrified by the thought of having sex with Harry – oh, no, he's definitely not horrified by that – but rather at the thought of having to turn Harry down, because they _can't_ , they absolutely _can't_ , and he-

“You've been yelling at Liam for four years to learn how to take a joke and now you're looking like you've seen a ghost because I played one on you.” Harry laughs loudly. “Gotta love the irony.”

“I-” Louis can feel his face heat up and now he's just annoyed and a little embarrassed. “I wasn't aware we'd gotten to the point where we joke about having sex with each other,” he says sourly and realises one second too late that he sounds like his mum.

“I guess we haven't, but I'm drunk,” Harry says, as if that excuses everything. Maybe it does. “Could have been nice, though, don't you think? We were good at the sex-part.”

Louis closes his eyes, smiles weakly and entirely without feeling. “We were teenagers and constantly horny, doesn't mean we were actually _good_ at sex.” 

Except they were. They so absolutely were. 

Louis remembers sloppy blowjobs and maddeningly enthusiastic rimming and handjobs so quick and frantic that they'd occasionally leave friction burns. And the fucking... God the fucking. They were teenagers experiencing their first real encounter with love and Louis knows that they'd never receive an award for their technical finesse, but he remembers being fuelled by hormone-driven love that stuck so deep it touched the very core of his being. He remembers having Harry inside him for the first time, remembers how sweaty they'd been and how much they'd both been shaking, remembers not being able to stop whimpering as he moved his hips experimentally while hiding his face in Harry's neck, remembers Harry holding him so tightly it almost hurt, and he especially remembers the feeling of constantly being on the verge of passing out from pleasure. 

He remembers all of it vividly and it's awful.

“I think we were good at everything,” Harry says. “Sex included.”

“Yes, well, you're a child,” Louis says and gives Harry's foot a little nudge with his own.

“As opposed to you, who are a mature grown-up?”

“Glad you understand.”

They fall into silence for a few moments, drinking from their respective bottles, looking at everything but each other, and it's nice. They always did well with enjoying each other's company in silence.

It's Harry who eventually speaks up, voice soft and maybe, _maybe_ , the faintest bit remorseful. “We were good together, weren't we?” he asks. “It's not just something I've deluded myself into thinking to make it easier to deal with?”

“I- no.” Louis shakes his head and swallows. “No, it's not something you've deluded yourself into thinking. We... we were good together. Amazing, even.”

Somehow, that only makes Harry look sadder, his eyebrows tilting upwards and his eyes going round with a flicker of innocence that no longer fits who he is. “I thought so,” he says, more to himself than to Louis it seems.

Louis drinks a little more champagne. “Why did you ask?”

“Just needed to know, I guess,” Harry says, shrugging. “It- I mean, I spent a lot of time after we broke up wondering if we really did implode because you didn't want to come out or if... if you just needed an excuse to leave without hurting me.”

And that... that's new information. Louis' chest hurts a little and there's a hollow feeling in his tummy that could either be a result of too much champagne on an empty stomach or simply that he's hurt. Evidence would suggest it could be both. “Why the hell would you think that?” he asks after a stretch of silence.

“Because...” Harry trails off and the way he rolls his eyes at the sky tells Louis he's regretting starting the conversation in the first place. “Because running away just because you were scared didn't seem like something you'd do, it didn't- it didn't add up, it didn't fit with the image I had of you. In my head, you were too brave to let fright keep you from doing what you wanted.”

Louis mouth drops open and it takes a fair few seconds before he manages to close it. “Oh, God...” he mumbles, shaking his head. “Don't ever underestimate my ability to let the weight of other people's opinions hold me down, Harry. I wasn't looking for an excuse to get rid of you because I was unhappy, I was simply too afraid to give you what you seemed to want more than anything else.” The ' _including me_ ' goes unsaid.

“Oh,” Harry says with a small, shaky laugh that sounds like it has its roots in pure relief. “Good to know.”

“You haven't- don't tell me you've gone around for the last two years thinking we ended things because I didn't want to be with you anymore?” The possibility alone makes Louis' heart feel like it's being sawed in half by an aggressive, rusty chainsaw.

“Not thinking it, necessarily, just suspecting that it was a valid possibility.”

“It's not a valid possibility,” Louis snaps. “I love- I loved you, you know I did, and I was happy with you, and considering I've mostly lived like a monk since the moment we split, I don't understand why you'd have any reason to think-”

“I just told you why I thought it.”

“Yeah, because you thought of me as too _brave_ to be scared?” Louis scoffs. “Come off it.”

Harry grits his teeth. “It's the truth, Lou. I thought the bloody world of you, I looked up to you, fuck, even as young as we were, I thought we'd end up married with kids, I thought I'd get to spend the rest of my life with you, I thought I'd get to wake up every morning with you right next to me until the day I died, and then you didn't want to co-”

“Stop it,” Louis cuts him off sharply. 

He's not doing this right now, he's doing this _ever_. Fuck, he too had hoped at one point that he and Harry would end up married and with kids, but that hope burst a long time ago and it hurt so badly when it did and Louis is _not_ gonna let a half-drunk Harry remind him of the pain he went through, especially not at his mother's wedding reception. Nope.

“You don't get to do this,” he continues, voice tight. “You don't- you don't get to drink yourself brave enough to start stirring up shit that I spent _ages_ burying. I thought we'd end up married with kids, too, alright, I really did, or at least I desperately hoped we would, but we _didn't_. We broke up and you went on to date someone else for over a year without me knowing about it while I spent more or less every night we weren't on the road at home on my couch because I missed you so much that I couldn't bring myself to go find something better to do. 

“I fucking closed myself off, I didn't talk properly to anyone for _months_ , I took care of a completely shattered heart all on my own, and now you're sitting here and telling me about how you thought we'd end up and you don't even know what it does to me because you and I have lived two completely separate lives for the last year and nine months, Harry! We've been on tour together, we've been recording an album together, we've done what we had to to keep up appearances, but we haven't been in each other lives _at all_! Fuck, I didn't even know you were seeing someone! And after all that, it's not fair of you to sit here and remind me of everything I went through when-”

“Everything _you_ went through?” Harry cuts in. He's staring at Louis, eyes round as tennis balls, and despite the crass nature of the question, he just looks lost and like he wants to sink into the ground. “I went through all of that, too, you know. You think I just watched you walk out of our flat that day and immediately jumped right into the life of a single eighteen year-old who was happy to be free?”

Putting the champagne bottle down on the grass, making sure it won't fall over, Louis drags his hands over his face and sighs deeply. “No, Harry, of course I don't, but at least you dared to rely on your friends and family to get over it,” he says. “My point is that you said you always saw me as brave and maybe I knew that on a subconscious level, maybe I knew that that's how everyone close to me saw me, and maybe that's why I chose to not show anyone how... fucked up I was.”

“Louis-”

“No, honestly, evidence suggests that you're the brave one here because _you_ were the one who asked for help without giving a flying fuck that people saw you hurting while I chose to cope by crying myself to sleep every night for two months and pray that no one heard me.”

He knows already before he finishes talking that he's said too much. Harry wasn't supposed to ever know how badly their breakup affected Louis, he was only supposed to know what Louis chose to show and tell him in the safety of broad daylight. Confessions made under trees in the darkness while a wedding party takes place twenty metres away weren't supposed to happen.

“I didn't know,” Harry says quietly. “I thought- I don't know. I thought you were doing alright.”

“Yeah, because that's what I wanted you to think,” Louis says and maybe there's a hint of bitterness in his voice.

“You're an idiot. Bottling up your feelings like that isn't healthy, it can get serious consequences.”

“You don't say.”

“I'm serious! You can end up depressed or really anti-social and you can get problems with chronic stomach pains and-”

“Thank you, Dr. Phil.”

Harry just looks unbearably sad. “For real, Lou. You should talk to someone.”

“This happened almost two years ago, Harry,” Louis says tiredly. “I'm fine now.”

“You were yelling at me two minutes ago for reminding you of everything that happened.”

“Just because I'm fine, it doesn't mean I wanna think about it.”

“I think that's what the call being in denial.”

“No, that's not-” God, Louis just wants this conversation to end. He should have gotten drunk after all, to hell with not embarrassing his mum and making an arse of himself in front of his entire family. “I'm not in denial, I know very well what happened, I just prefer not to pry open any wounds when it's not necessary.”

“Okay, but if you one day realise that a little bit of prying might do you good, I can... I'm here, just so you know.”

“Yeah,” is all Louis can think of to say. To talk to Harry about their failed relationship sounds nothing short of mortifying and Louis is fairly certain it's gonna end in tears, at least on his part. The noises from the party seem to have died down a little, though not completely, and Louis stands up on his feet, supporting himself against the tree. “Might be time to head back, let mum know I haven't been kidnapped.”

Harry stands up, too, and shifts his gaze in direction of the tent. “She doesn't look too worried,” he says.

Picking up his bottle, Louis snorts. “She's probably drunk on cider.”

“I got a little drunk on cider, too,” Harry admits.

Louis leans his shoulder against the tree and smirks. “Such a lightweight. It's embarrassing.”

“It's one of my life's greatest griefs.”

“At least you don't have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on getting drunk when you go out.”

“And yet you mock me for being a lightweight.”

“It's a long standing tradition amongst humans that I have no intentions of dishonouring.”

Harry laughs loudly, even throws his head back with it, and Louis' stomach does a little swoop. Harry's always had a nice laugh. There's a smile lingering in his eyes when he looks at Louis and his eyes are dark, pupils blown almost all the way out to adjust to the darkness, but they still glint in the light coming from the tent and the area around it. If Louis isn't completely mistaken, there's something wondering in that glint.

“What are you thinking about?” he therefore asks. 

Harry answers by dropping his bottle to the ground and holding out a hand, to which Louis responds by raising his eyebrows in silent questioning. “Wanna dance?” Harry says.

An involuntary bark of laughter escapes Louis' lips. “You wanna dance?” Pause. “Here?” Long pause. “With me?”

“We're at a wedding and I don't know about you, but I haven't had one single dance yet and I think that's bordering on constituting illegal.”

Louis hasn't had a dance yet, having just watched other people do it, some with greater success than others. He's not that big a fan of couple dancing, is more of a party dancing kind of guy, but Harry's standing there with a hopeful expression on his beautiful, beautiful face and he just asked Louis to dance like it's still 2012 and all is well between them. He might be headed towards an ocean of hurt and disappointment, but that doesn't stop him from reaching out and accepting Harry's hand. 

There should be at least a few seconds of awkwardness, a few seconds where neither of them know what to do next, and Louis expects that, steels himself for it, actually. But it doesn't happen. The moment his fingers touch Harry's, he finds himself being pulled forward by a gentle yank. He stumbles and catches himself against Harry's chest, snorting quietly.

“That was very smooth,” he says. He doesn't mention how close together they're standing or the fact that he can feel the subtle rhythm of Harry's steady heartbeat right underneath his fingertips.

“I'm working on it,” Harry says. Sliding one arm around Louis' waist, he pulls Louis another step closer, and just like that, they're pressed together from chest to toe. 

A cover-version of Snow Patrol's _Run_ that Louis doesn't recognise is playing over by the tent, slightly hollow-sounding so far away, but not so much he can't make out the words or hear the music clearly. Harry starts swaying them gently on the spot, just enough to remind Louis that they're really doing this. They're slow dancing, he and Harry, at his own mum's wedding, out of sight for everyone else, and it feels so... intimate. 

He puts his free hand on Harry's shoulder and lets himself be led around with tiny steps, back and forth, left and right. They mostly just move in a circle and don't actually _dance_ , but it feels good, Louis feels comfortable, oddly enough, so he doesn't say anything. Harry's cheek brushes against the side of his head and without giving it too much thought, he leans into the touch, closes his eyes at the warm, fuzzy feeling in his belly. It can stay for now.

The song ends, but the silence barely lasts for one second before Christina Perri's _Jar of hearts_ starts up. Normally, Louis would have made a comment about his mum's terribly cheesy taste in music, but the song just seems to fit, so he doesn't. Harry seems to think so, too, as he releases his grip on Louis' waist in favour of cradling his head. And Louis... Louis didn't sign up for any head-cradling. He just wanted to dance for a bit.

“This okay?”

Louis bites his lip, silently hopes Harry can't feel the way his heart rate has picked up just the faintest bit. Ducking his head, he leans his forehead against Harry's shoulder, breathes in deeply. Harry still uses the same bloody cologne he did two years ago. God. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, this is okay.”

“Good,” Harry says. There's a moment of blissful nothingness and then Louis feels a kiss being pressed to a spot right above his ear. Louis' initial reaction is to freeze. His secondary reaction is to dig his fingers into Harry's shoulder and will himself to not release any potentially embarrassing or inappropriate sounds.

Lifting his head to settle more comfortably in the crook of Harry's neck, his lips scrape over Harry's collarbone, and he feels more than hears the sharp intake of breath right above him. Louis knows that this would probably be a good time to take a big step back, wish Harry a good night and scurry off. 

That's what he absolutely, without doubt, _should_ do.

It's also what he absolutely, without doubt, doesn't want to do.

Harry's neck is all soft skin and lean muscle, and Louis can feel his pulse there, thumping with slightly higher intensity than normal. His breath trembling just the faintest bit, Louis leans in and touches his lips to a spot right under Harry's ear. The reaction comes in form of another sharp intake of air and Harry's finger closing around a handful of Louis' hair. But he doesn't step away, nor does he indicate that he wants Louis to stop.

So Louis doesn't stop. Adding enough pressure that he can feel Harry's blood flow under his lips, he opens his mouth, just a little bit, and pokes his tongue out. Harry's grip on his hair tightens, enough that it hurts a wee bit, but not enough that Louis pulls back. Louis can hear how Harry's breath stutters and he _knows_ that if he had the courage to look at Harry's face, he'd be met by a pair of wide eyes, flushed cheeks and lips that have gone bright pink and slightly swollen from being nibbled at.

Harry tastes like home, Louis decides; home mixed with warmth, the familiar cologne and the scent of some sort of citrus-y shampoo. He likes it, likes how it touches his tongue with a thrill of something new, yet still safe. Pulling his hand free from Harry's hold, he uses it to cup the back of his neck, steadies himself as he drags his lips along Harry's jawline.

“Lou,” Harry mumbles. “Louis, what are you doing?”

Louis shakes his head, his lips still connected to Harry's jaw. “Dunno,” he mumbles back.

Harry takes a tiny step backwards and places two fingers under Louis' chin, forcing him to look up. And now that he can see Harry's face and is therefore forced out of his tiny little bubble, Louis is feeling stupider by the second, no less because Harry doesn't say a word, just looks at Louis as if he's expecting an explanation. Louis can't offer an explanation.

Eventually, Harry drops his hands to place on Louis' hips, and a smile pulls at his mouth. “That was the first time we ever slow danced,” he says.

That wasn't quite the comment Louis expected, but he'll take it. “Yeah,” he says. “We tried at Paul's wedding, remember? But people kept telling us to stop being so obvious and then shoved us to a hidden corner of the dance floor, so we just gave up after a while and went to the bathroom and made out instead.”

Harry grins. “Dead romantic, we were.”

“Wasn't that bad,” Louis says. “I'm pretty sure you kept almost biting my tongue off to tell me how much you loved me, and if that isn't the crème de la crème of romance, I don't know what is.”

“Hey, I was seventeen, drunk and in love, I did what I thought was right there and then.”

“Hm, yeah. It wasn't too bad, it was a good day.”

“Yeah.” Harry lifts one of his hands to Louis' forehead, lets it hover in the air for a moment, as if waiting for Louis to back away, before brushing a stray strand of hair to the side. 

Music is still playing over by the tent, now a song with a slow beat that Louis doesn't recognise, but other than that, it's mostly quiet. He wonders how late it's gotten. Past midnight, possibly.

“I should get going,” Harry says. “Mum's probably wondering where I ran off to.”

“If she knows you well enough, she'll think you found a nice man to take you home.”

An honest to God _giggle_ tumbles over Harry's lips. “Yeah, no, she doesn't really know that side of me,” he says.

“No? Why not?”

“Because she'd have started worrying if she knew, told me that it's not like me and asked what's wrong.”

Louis bites back a comment about she'd have been right about that, because sleeping around really isn't at all Harry-like. He vividly recalls the last time he tried to get critically involved in that part of Harry's life and he has no wish to repeat it.

“Yeah, maybe,” is therefore all he says.

“Yeah.” It's quiet for a moment, but Harry has a pensive expression on his face, like he's trying to figure something out. Before Louis can ask what's on his mind, Harry pretty much answers it when he leans down and plants a kiss on Louis' left cheek. It's over before Louis can give an actual reaction, and maybe that's for the best. Harry lets go of Louis and steps back, smiling as he says, “I'll see you soon, Lou.”

“Bye,” Louis says automatically, his arms hanging limp along his sides as he watches Harry walk away and eventually disappear inside the tent. Diverting his eyes to the ground, he spots Harry's Bacardi-bottle standing there, looking a little sad and abandoned. It has that in common with Louis. There's also some champagne left in his own bottle, and honestly, to hell with his stay sober-policy. He isn't a goddamned AA counsellor; he's a mature adult and if he wants to get drunk on alcohol that doesn't belong to him whilst sitting all by himself underneath a tree where no one can see him in the middle of the bloody night while wearing a fairly expensive suit, that's his decision and his decision alone.

*

Louis wakes up the next morning in his bed at his mum's house with no recollection whatsoever of how he got there or why it feels like a block of cement has been placed on his head. There's a glass of water on the nightstand and he gulps all of it down in one go before he falls back against the pillows and closes his eyes. He remembers champagne and he remembers Bacardi and he remembers... vodka. And Niall. And a girl hanging off Niall's arm. Everything after that is a bit fuzzy. But he remembers everything before that clearly. Like talking to Harry and... slow dancing with Harry and- fuck, Harry kissing his cheek.

The door opens just then and his mum walks in, relieving Louis of having to delve any deeper into the mystery of the cheek-kiss.

“So,” she says as he closes the door and walks over to sit down at the foot end of the bed. “I had an interesting talk with Niall last night.”

“You- what?” Louis sits up, suppressing a groan when his headache increases exponentially. “Why did you talk to Niall?” Not that she has a problem with Niall or vice versa, but as far as Louis knows, they're not particularly close either.

She smiles like she feels terribly bad that she has to answer. “Because apparently you stole the bottle of vodka he was planning on sharing with a girl, then you drank half of it and started making confessions about your thoughts about and feelings for the one bandmate of yours I've barely heard you mention in the past two years.”

Louis is never getting drunk again. He's starting a life of abstinence. “You know what drunken ramblings are like, mum, just mindless talk that doesn't mean shit,” he says with an uneasy laugh. First making sure he's wearing something under the covers, he slides out of bed, stumbles over to his bag and opens it in search for something to wear that isn't his suit.

“Sometimes they are,” she agrees. “And sometimes they're ramblings that you're too afraid to get out when you're sober.”

He fishes out a pair of joggers and a t-shirt and puts them on before he answers. “But most of the time, it's mindless talk that doesn't mean shit.”

“And sometimes, it's-”

“Mum, please, drop it.”

She sits still for a moment before she gets up and smiles sadly at him. Louis hates that smile, because it's the same one she uses every time she's feeling sorry for him. “You and Harry broke up, Louis,” she says.

He rolls his eyes. “Thanks for reminding me, I'd totally forgot.”

“No need to take that tone. I just want you to remember what you went through last time and if it's really worth going through it again if this doesn't-”

“You're getting way ahead of yourself, mum,” he interrupts, because no, he doesn't wanna hear this. “Harry and I aren't... we're not getting back together.”

She looks genuinely surprised at that and somehow, it makes a heavy feeling settle in Louis' chest. “How come?” she asks. Then her eyebrows draw together in a stern frown. “It's not still the same issue, is it? You don't still think that telling the world you're-”

“No, mum, that's not it, I-” He cuts himself off and draws a deep breath. “No, that's not it. Can we talk about something else?”

“Oh, sure,” she says. “We can talk about how you got so drunk Dan had to carry you to bed and get you out of your suit, which, by the way, you're gonna have to take to get dry cleaned if you have any hope of ever getting to use it again.”

She looks like she's inclined to start yelling, so Louis does what feels natural – he yelps and runs out of the room, ignoring her calls for him to come back.

*

On the last day of July, Louis flies out to Toronto along with Zayn. The other three are already there, he's told. Zayn sleeps for a better part of the flight, apparently having not gotten much rest last night, thus leaving Louis to his own company with nothing to distract him from the completely unwelcome feeling of expectancy that seems to poke at his ribs every time he thinks about the fact that he'll be seeing Harry again in a matter of hours. 

They haven't talked since the wedding, not even by text, and it's not that Louis _expected_ them to, especially since according to media, Harry's been busy twenty-four hours a day, running around in LA in the company of friends with varying degrees of fame on their shoulders. But still. They bloody _slow danced_ , like that's a completely normal activity for them to engage in together, and then nothing for over a week? 

Louis isn't mad, but he may be feeling the slightest bit disgruntled.

Zayn wakes up forty minutes before they're set to land and he doesn't say anything, exactly, but he keeps throwing curious glances in Louis' direction that are probably meant to be inconspicuous. Louis suspects Zayn's been talking to Niall and that he therefore _knows_ that something's changed, but Louis keeps his eyes firmly out the window, refuses to take the bait. 

He's no mindless little trout, thank you very much. More like an intellectually advanced bonefish.

It's not until they're in the car on the way to the hotel that Zayn's apparently had enough of Louis avoiding his eyes. Giving Louis' shin a light kick, he raises one eyebrow. “Really?” he says. “This is what you're going with? Ignoring me?”

“I'm not ignoring you,” Louis says. “I'm just wordlessly informing you that you can stop wordlessly asking, because if there was any information to share, I wouldn't be sharing it with you.”

“Aha.” Louis doesn't like the way Zayn's lips tilt upwards in a sadistic smirk. “So you and Harry didn't slow dance at your mum's wedding? And you didn't kiss his neck?”

Louis freezes. “ _What_?” he squeaks. “How did you know-”

“You drunkenly told Niall, who drunkenly told Liam, who soberly told me.”

“I- well, you can just shut right up, because you weren't even at the wedding,” Louis says with a huff.

Zayn snorts. “That makes absolutely no sense.”

“It makes all the bloody sense in the world from where I'm standing,” Louis snaps.

“You must be standing in one of those uncivilised places where common sense and logic don't matter, then.”

“Damn straight. Now shut up.”

It's early in the evening, the sun's hanging low on the sky, when the car rolls in at the back parking lot of the hotel they're staying at. As Louis waits for his bags to be unloaded from the boot of the car, he checks his phone, just in case of any new messages or missed calls. There aren't any.

“They're all inside,” Zayn says over Louis' shoulder.

Louis turns around. “What?”

“They're all inside,” Zayn repeats. “Liam and Niall. And Harry. They're in their rooms, Liam texted me when we were in the car.”

“Oh. Alright. Cool.” Louis is usually the goddamned essence of unfazed, except for now, clearly, when he desperately wanted to sound unfazed. If Zayn notices anything out of the ordinary, he doesn't say so, just gives Louis' shoulder a pat before he hoists one of his bags over his shoulder and follows Preston towards the hotel's back entrance.

“You alright there?” Alberto asks as he hands Louis the smallest one of his three bags and grabs the other two himself. “You're looking a little pale.”

“We're in Canada, the winter's starting to take a toll on me.”

“It's twenty-three degrees.”

“I'm fragile, I don't do well with sudden changes of air types. They have different air in America than in Europe.”

Alberto smiles. “Alright, if you say so.”

The lobby's blessedly empty save for the hotel staff, and Louis has never before in his life been so thankful for the lack of fans waiting for him. The check-ins have already been taken care of, Alberto tells him as he steers Louis in direction of the elevators, and God, okay, in danger of sounding like a stuck-up twat, Louis thinks to himself that he loves being important enough that he doesn't even have to do his own check-ins if he doesn't want to.

Their rooms are on the fourth floor. Louis' is number four twenty-nine and Alberto follows him there and drops off the bags before he gives Louis the usual, “Don't jump out a window without letting me know,” and heads to his own room one floor down.

Another hotel room, another soft bed with slightly stiff sheets, but a very fluffy pillow. Louis sits down, folds his legs in front of himself and looks at the beige wall on the opposite side of the room. He's tired, which isn't that odd really considering it's almost one in the morning in England, but it's only seven forty-five in Toronto, so he can't go to sleep for at least another two and a half hours. It's sad.

He could go find one of the other boys to entertain him. ' _Or you could do what you actually want to and text Harry to find out what room he's in_ ', a voice in the back of his head says in an obnoxiously self-satisfied tone. He could, yes, and he probably should, if nothing else because he'd rather not have the first time he sees Harry again be in front of the other boys and half their team at soundcheck tomorrow.

With that in mind, he types out, ' _what room are you in?_ ' and sends it to Harry.

The answer comes so quickly he suspects there's a possibility Harry was waiting for Louis to get in touch. It's a somewhat comforting thought. ' _434_ ' the text says, and Louis doesn't waste any time getting on his feet and run- no, _walk calmly_ out the door. 

And leave his key card inside.

He figures he can deal with that later, is more interested in getting to room four thirty-four right now. He only has to knock once before the door springs open, so alright, Harry was waiting right on the other side, then. The lack of subtlety Harry possesses amazes Louis, and the lack of embarrassment for said lack of subtlety amazes him even more.

“I'm tired and I want to sleep, so you have to distract me,” he says as he strolls into the room.

The door closes and Harry follows in his tracks, smiling wryly when his eyes meet Louis'. “Hi, Lou, nice to see you again, too. I've been great, thanks for asking, how about you?”

Getting seated on the bed, Louis rolls his eyes. “You sound like my mum. But since you asked, I've been good, thanks.” Pursing his lips, he adds, “You could have known that sooner if you'd texted or called or e-mailed or tweeted or whatever.”

“What?” Harry laughs, folding his arms loosely over his chest. “Since when do we text and call and e-mail and tweet each other?”

“I- well, we don't, I guess.” Louis taps his fingers against the mattress, hesitating for a moment. “I just figured we'd may have started considering recent developments.”

“What recent developments?”

Louis sighs deeply. Is Harry being stupid on purpose? Has his slow manner of speaking finally started affecting his brain as well? Louis always thought it was a possibility, but he also figured it would happen around retirement age, not at twenty. “We danced, Harry, at my mum's wedding,” he says, waving one hand in the air. “We slow danced and then I... I did some kissing and you kissed my cheek.”

Harry blinks. “Oh, that,” he says. “Did that... I mean, was it supposed to mean something? Was I supposed to give you a call?”

And... oh. Louis feels a little stupid all of a sudden, like he's spent a couple of nights too many losing sleep over overthinking something that, apparently, wasn't at all worth overthinking. Like Harry replying to his text and opening the door so quickly were just coincidences. Alright, okay. “No, I guess not,” he says, keeping his voice even and his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall right next to Harry's ear.

“Not that it wasn't nice hanging out with you,” Harry says quickly as he sits down next to Louis. “Because, I mean, it was, yeah? But I figured we were just drunk and a little bored and needed something to pass the time with, not that there was anything more to it.”

Apparently Harry has a real knack for picking words that simultaneously makes Louis feel like a twenty-two year-old loser, a naïve fifteen year-old and an ox ready to storm off in fury. “Seriously?” he says, voice flat. “I wasn't even drunk, Harry, I was barely tipsy and I wasn't bored, I just wanted- oh, fuck this.” He can't stand sitting here and watch Harry's eyebrows draw further and further together, putting a near crestfallen look on his face, he isn't bloody _prepared_ to deal with that look, so he gets up on his feet, pinching the bridge of his nose and says, “I'll see you tomorrow, okay?” before he walks to the door with quick steps, opens it and steps out in the empty corridor.

He gets about halfway back to his own room before Harry comes darting after him with a call of, “Where are you going?” 

It is, of course, when Louis standing in front of his own door and hears Harry come closer, step by step, that he remembers he doesn't have a key card and thus no way of getting in. Banging his forehead once against the door, he lets his shoulders slump. “I don't have my key,” he says to no one specific.

“Oh,” says Harry right behind him. “Did... why do you need a key? Why did you run off?”

Louis lifts his head, but doesn't turn around before he answers. “Because the conversation was over.”

“We were in the middle of it, it was hardly over,” Harry argues. Louis doesn't say anything, just keeps his focus on the wood pattern on the door, and after a prolonged silence, he hears Harry draw a deep sigh. “I had a really nice time at the wedding,” he says.

“Good, call my mum and let her know, I'm sure she'll appreciate it.”

“That's not what I meant, I- or, well, yes, that too, but I- it was nice being there with you.” Silent beat. “It was good having a talk about... everything. We never really got any closure back then, so it was nice to get a new chance at it now. Finally free to move on, right?”

Closure. Louis blinks. Yes. Right. Closure is what Louis wants, too. He's spent so much time being bitter and upset over what went down and how it went down, but now they've gotten closure, they're done with all of it, and that's good. It's great, even. They can both move on with their lives and Louis can finally start putting himself out there again and that's more than great, that's fantastic. Yeah.

Turning around to face Harry, Louis smiles the best he can manage, refuses to acknowledge the heavy lump that's settled in his throat. “Yeah, super,” he says with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.

A smile so wide it practically splits his face in half breaks out on Harry's lips and he just looks plain relieved, really, when he all but throws his arms around Louis' neck, effectively knocking Louis into the door. 

Louis can't do much but to return the hug, but he thinks that if he was on _the Office_ , this would the moment he'd look into the camera.

*

Zayn knows, but he doesn't ask. Niall knows and he asks twice before Zayn says something that shuts him up. Liam probably knows, given how he keeps patting Louis' back in passing, but he doesn't ask. Louis appreciates the silence, appreciates that Zayn doesn't try and get him to talk again, because honestly, he has no idea what he'd even say. Fuck, he doesn't even know how he _feels_. 

He's okay, is the thing; he feels fine, happy with life, but it's like there's something brewing right underneath the surface, something ugly that threatens to erupt like a volcano at any given moment, completely without warning. Spending too much time in close proximity to Harry makes that something increase in temperature, he's realised. He senses it every night when they're onstage. They'll brush past each other every now and again and Harry will smile at him, bright and dazzling and so painfully obviously happy that he's allowed to look properly at Louis again. And Louis will return the smile, because what else can he do, but it feels fake – not because he doesn't want to smile at Harry, but because he feels like he should be doing something else instead.

Louis isn't an idiot, nor is he an anxious sixteen year-old with no idea who he is or what he's supposed to do with his life, so he knows how to recognise what might be going on. He just has no interest in dealing with it, is all, so he doesn't.

There's next to no free time to be found in the weeks that follow. When they're not playing shows or doing promo for the fragrance (“Bloody useless,” Zayn mutters every time someone brings it up), they're in some type of recording studio – improvised ones or real ones, it varies from day to day. It keeps his mind off things, having to spend most of his energy on work, so he's pretty pleased about it. Not to mention that they usually go in one at the time, giving him plenty of time to himself and less time for Harry to smile at him.

One Tuesday afternoon in the middle of August when they're in D.C., Louis and Liam are watching _Avatar_ on pay per view in Liam's room, lying side by side on the bed with a maxi sized bag of crisps between them, when there's an insistent knocking on the door. Liam gets up to answer, looking a little cautious, as Louis watches from the bed, and the door's barely swung open before Harry stalks inside, looking like a thunderstorm.

“What's up with you?” Liam asks, letting the door slide closed.

“I was followed all the way here,” Harry hisses. He actually _hisses_ and Louis stares. Plonking down in the armchair next to the TV, he crosses his arms tightly. “A- a _fan_ followed me all the fucking way into the parking lot here and when I didn't stop to talk to her, she got _mad_ and I- fuck.” He inhales deeply, clenches and unclenches his hands, and closes his eyes. Louis can tell that he's willing himself to calmness.

“You know you're allowed to be mad, right?” he says, smiling weakly. “Being okay with people stalking us isn't exactly part of the job description.”

“Apparently, it should be, the way she just expected me to be nice and accommodating,” Harry grunts. “I didn't want to be nice and accommodating, I wanted to tell her to sod off.”

Liam looks a little worried where he's standing next to the TV. “You didn't do that, did you? Because I think that would be bad.”

“Oh, look who's talking; it's Mr. 'can't hold my tongue on Twitter',” Harry says snarkily. Harry doesn't get snarky very often, but Louis must say he's enjoying it immensely.

Liam seems to deflate a little. Giving a crooked smile, he sits down on the bed and crosses his legs. “Point taken,” he says.

“You're okay, though, right?” Louis asks, eyes on Harry. “She didn't, like, do anything to you?”

“No, no, I'm fine, just annoyed,” Harry says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I'm gonna go take a shower.”

“Gonna wash off the stench of crazy fans?” Liam guesses. “Was there a reason you came here first or did you just need to blow off some steam?” 

Harry shrugs as he stands up. “I was looking for Louis, but he wasn't in his room, so I came here instead.”

Liam's eyelids drop and his eyebrows draw together. “So I'm your second choice, your first choice being the guy you've barely spoken to for two years. Nice to know where my place in your life is, _Harold_.”

“Well, actually, you were my third choice, but Zayn wasn't in his room either,” Harry says, flashing Liam a grin. Louis snorts. Liam sticks his tongue out.

“Did you want something, then?” Louis asks. Harry blinks, confused, so he adds, “Since you were looking for me before you settled for Liam.”

“Oh, no, I was just planning on venting to you.”

“Oh. Alright.” He smiles. “Guess you don't have that need anymore, so... I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.” 

Louis doesn't mean for his goodbye to come out as if he wants Harry gone, but judging by the way Harry's face falls, it seems like that's exactly how it comes out. “Yeah, okay,” Harry says, picking his face up again. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Liam says, but his eyes are on Louis, narrow and suspicious and God fuck, Louis is afraid Liam's ' _don't ask_ '-policy is about to be put six feet under.

Harry leaves and it takes approximately three seconds after the door's closed quietly before Liam pounces. “What on earth was that? He told you you were his first choice to come see when he was upset and you just send him on his way?” He shakes his head, looking profoundly disappointed. “Always knew you were a prick, Lou, but not like that.”

“First of all, that's not what happened,” Louis says, waving a finger in Liam's face. “He said he wanted to find me so he could _vent_ to me, but he'd already vented, or at least Harry's version of venting, to the both of us, so obviously he had no reason for wanting to talk to me anymore. Second, I'm a prick in every possibly sense of the word.”

“Clearly,” is all Liam says, but he looks a little extra aggressive when he stuffs the next mouthful of crisps into his mouth.

*

Louis doesn't much care for being wet from head to toe whilst wearing clothes. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't much feel like being filmed while only wearing boxers or swim trunks either, and since he's not gonna be one of those dickheads who passes on doing the ice bucket challenge when a few million people are well aware that he's been tagged, he's left with only the option of doing it fully clothed.

And now he's done it, but despite having jumped straight into the pool after having the two buckets poured over him and despite it being hotter than the bloody sun even now that it's dark, he's shaking from head to toe as he waddles towards the elevator to get to his room. He takes a shower and gets into his pyjama pants, putting the wet clothes in a plastic bag, before he huddles under the duvet and brings out his phone to upload the videos to Instagram.

Now that his body has regained its normal temperature, he realises how bloody sweltering hot it is in the room, and he lasts about two minutes under the covers before he pushes them to the side and kicks his pyjama pants off. He thinks to himself that if someone were to fly past his window now, they'd get a very clear shot of a naked Louis Tomlinson, sprawled out like a starfish on a bed that he suspects is bigger than his whole bedroom back at his mum's house. That exact picture, if he's not entirely mistaken, was the fantasy of someone he recalls getting a fan letter from in the early days of One Direction. Thinking back to it now, he has to smile, because he remembers the look of pure outrage on Harry's face and his grumpy mumbles of, “Can't believe people are so rude.”

Stroking up and down his chest absentmindedly, Louis closes his eyes. Harry was always the cutest little thing when he was grumpy. Like the time Louis said no, no and absolutely _no_ to finding a place where they could have their own wine cellar. “ _You're not even legally allowed to have alcohol, you git,_ ” Louis said, and Harry harrumphed and flipped over to lie on his front, half his face hidden in the pillow, the other half looking at Louis. Harry was naked, Louis remembers, and it was summer, so, just like Louis now, he wasn't covered by the duvet, putting his cute little butt on display.

Louis pauses his hand at his left nipple, gives it a little tweak as his mind provides him with the memory of a naked, mostly tattoo-free Harry, lying next to him in bed. He tweaks his nipple again, this time to the image of Harry's blinding grin, making a sharp gust of air escape his parted lips. Another tweak, now thinking about Harry rocking his hips subtly down against the mattress, and his dick gives a small twitch of interested as he lets his legs fall apart. 

A small part- okay, no, a large part of his brain tells him that having a wank while thinking about his ex who only recently started treating him (mostly) normally is a through and through terrible idea. But he's all alone here and no one's ever gonna find out. And he'll only be thinking about _past_ Harry, the Harry he dated, not _current_ Harry, who he's not dating, so that's surely gotta count for something, right?

Propping his feet up, Louis reaches down and wraps his fingers loosely around his slowly hardening cock as he keeps toying with his nipple with the other hand. In his head, Harry is still rubbing himself against the mattress, groaning every time the sheets catch against his balls. As Harry's breathing grows heavier, as does Louis', and his cock's reached full hardness in no time. His nipples are hard and the left one's so, so sensitive, like it always has been, every little touch to it making him buck his hips up and moan quietly.

The image in his head shifts, suddenly, to a scenario that actually took place once upon a time – one where Louis was riding an extremely wound up and on-edge Harry. Louis bites his lip on another moan and spreads his legs wider, drawing them further up towards his chest. Thumbing at the tip of his cock, he spreads a few drops of pre-cum down along the length, making the glide a little smoother. The Harry in his head is sweaty from head to toe, head thrown back against the pillows, strands of hair sticking to his forehead as he clutches onto Louis' thighs, begging him to please, please, _please_ go faster. 

Louis whimpers softly in his throat, lets go of his cock to press to fingers against his hole instead, and okay, okay, _yes_. It's too fucking dry, but he bloody _needs_ something inside, preferably soon, so he stumbles off the bed and walks on shaky legs over to his bag. The room's too dark for him to see anything properly, so he searches blindly for a few moments before he finds what he's looking for. He doesn't waste any time getting back on the bed, drawing his legs up, pop open the cap of the lube bottle and start working himself open. It's been too goddamned long since he last did this, is the thing, and while it therefore feels so good his eyes roll back into his scull as soon as get gets the first finger inside, it also takes him frustratingly long to get himself stretched properly open.

His wrist is aching and his cock is leaking and he's trembling all over by the time he reaches for the dildo. Lubing it up with shaky fingers, he draws his legs up against his chest as far his flexibility allows, and presses the tip against his clenching hole. His hips jerk at the feeling of the slick silicone sliding slowly inside and he moans, a little louder than before, whilst clawing at his chest for no other reason than the fact that it feels fucking good.

He thinks about all the times Harry fucked him like this, practically bent in half and with his legs spread so wide apart his muscles were sore for several days after. He imagines that the dildo is Harry's dick – Harry's lovely, big, smooth dick, fucking into him with deep, slow strokes that would eventually turn shallow and quick. And he imagines Harry's face; sweaty forehead, coloured cheeks, swollen lips from having kissed Louis too much, long, wavy, messy hair that moves with each thrust...

But past Harry didn't have long, wavy, messy hair. Present Harry, however, does, and Louis- Louis isn't supposed to think about present Harry, but now that he's started, he can't seem to stop. Images of tattooed arms, tattooed chest and strong shoulders flashes through his head, and he moans loudly, his hips stuttering as he shoves the dildo as far in as it can go. Reaching his free hand down to his cock, he wraps his fingers tightly around it and starts tugging in time with the thrusts.

As he gets closer and closer to finishing, his moans grow, both in intensity and in frequency, and he just hopes to God that the walls are soundproof here. If they aren't, Niall is getting one hell of a show right about now, one Louis doubts he'll appreciate much. 

But he's kinda gotten to the point where he doesn't give two flying fucks about who might hear him and not, so he keeps going, keeps thinking about Harry fucking him with constantly increasing force, about the way Harry's mouth always drops open when he orgasms, about the way he'd occasionally resort to tiny, pulsing fucks to put a near constant pressure on Louis' prostate, making Louis practically scream whilst trashing around underneath him.

He's just so bloody hard, is the thing, that he hardly notices it when a breathy moan of, “Oh God, Harry...” falls out of his mouth. And then he's said it once and in a haze pleasure, he figures that it can't really matter if he does it again. So as he fucks and jerks himself closer and closer to his finish, he keeps moaning out Harry's name, again and again and again until it's like something snaps inside him and he comes with a series of loud, “Ah”'s that he'll probably feel somewhat embarrassed about later, but that now only feel like they help in making his orgasm stronger.

It takes him a while to come down, and when he does, a forceful wave of shame washes over him, mostly for having called out Harry's name about fifty million times, but also for having thought about Harry _in the first place_. God fucking fuck. He did that a fair few times in the months following their breakup, but not this year and certainly not lately.

For once in his life, Louis is happy that sex – regardless of whether it's with himself or other people – makes him sleepy, because he absolutely does not wanna be forced to stay awake and bathe in a boiling hot pool of shame.

*

Louis kinda maybe avoids eye contact with Harry for a couple of days. He would have kept doing it for far longer if it was up to him, but Liam pulls him aside after the show in Nashville and tells him to stop whatever it is he's doing, because it's throwing off their whole stage dynamic. Louis doesn't see how him not looking Harry in the eyes damages any dynamic, but Liam looks dead serious, so he doesn't question it.

Liam's twenty-first birthday falls on the night of the first of two Chicago shows, and even though they don't go out, they do get comfortably drunk on alcohol that Louis bullies Alberto into buying for them. They fall asleep in Liam's room, all five of them; Liam and Niall on the bed, Zayn on the couch and Louis and Harry next to each other on the floor. Louis wakes up at fuck o'clock in the morning with his fingertips millimetres away from Harry's. And Harry looks so soft and at peace when he's asleep, so a part of Louis wants to slide closer to him and use his shoulder as a pillow. 

The more rational part of him turns over so he's looking at the wall. Removing temptation is a good course of action, he figures.

He calls his mum later in the day, before the show, and he tells her about everything that's been happening; the heat wave America seems to be going through and that leaves him sweating his own skin off nearly every day (“It's like we're not even on planet earth anymore!”), his next charity match in September (“I haven't played properly in ages, I'm gonna make a right tit of myself.”), Liam's sickening, but sweet, infatuation with Sophia that leaves everyone feeling uncomfortable (“He can't keep his bloody lips to himself for five seconds and it's hideous.”), recording the new album (“I feel like it's gonna be the best one yet and- yes, I know I've said that about all of them, but this time I'm really feeling it.”). 

He tells her about everything, but when she asks about Harry, he closes up and desperately tries to come up with something else to talk about.

“ _Don't dodge the question, Louis,_ ” she scolds. “ _I can hear you thinking over there and if I know you right, it's not about a proper answer._ ”

“I'm- fuck, I don't know what to tell you, mum,” he says, eyes on the ugly picture on the wall above the bed.

“ _The truth, perhaps, if that's not too much to ask for?_ ”

The truth would be something along the lines of, ' _Well, he basically told me he's really glad we talked, because then we could finally be done with our past relationship once and for all, which is what I wanted, but for reasons I don't want to think about, it just really sucked, and sometime later I got off thinking about him and now I don't know what the fuck to think, because as far as he's concerned, we're good, but as far as I'm concerned, I just want to spend time with him without feeling like we're on two completely different pages._ ' Obviously, he's not gonna say that.

“I don't know what the truth is,” he settles for eventually. “But I'll let you know when I do.”

But several days pass and he doesn't have any sudden revelations. They have almost two weeks off between Chicago and Pasadena and Louis is grateful to have a few days at home. He goes back to Doncaster and spends the first half of his break there, catches up with old friends, reluctantly lets himself be talked into mowing the lawn and, not so reluctantly, allows his mum to cook for him.

He goes back to London on October 5th, just in time to greet the first proper autumn rain welcome. And as the rain cascades down at a frightening speed, Louis huddles on his couch, eats brownie batter, watches TV and tweets about watching TV. 

Niall celebrates his birthday the day after and it's a fun party, filled with people who seem to get louder and louder the later it gets. Louis may have had a weak twinge of hope that Harry would be there, but one look at Twitter tells him that Harry's back in LA after having attended his grandmother's funeral earlier in the day. It stings a bit that Harry wouldn't tell him, but it's fine, Louis gets it. Nevertheless he sends Harry a text. ' _sorry about your grandma xx_ ' it simply says. He doesn't get a response until after he's gone to bed. 

' _thanks. sorry i didn't let you know x_ '

On the 7th, there's the charity match in Glasgow and on the 8th, it's time for the announcement for the release of _Four_. Louis likes album announcements and he likes it even better than usual this time, because it comes accompanied by the release of _Fireproof_ as a free download. He loves _Fireproof_ and as does Liam, so the two of them have a drink together as a mini celebration.

Tour starts up again on the 11th and they're playing the bloody Rose Bowl stadium three nights in a row, which they can all agree gives a thrilling feeling of accomplishment. Niall's actual birthday falls on the day of the last California show and, just like on Liam's birthday, they all pile up in one hotel room and get drunk. Louis reckons that could be a nice tradition if they manage to stick to it. A little raunchy, perhaps, but they could all do with a little extra raunchiness in their lives.

*

“You asleep?”

Louis opens his eyes, looking up to find Harry standing there.

“Was planning on it, yeah,” he says as he adjusts the pillow under his head and pulls his blanket up under his chin. Air condition is a wonderful thing, really, but not in October and not when it's left on sixteen degrees and cooling the whole day. It's too cold on the whole bus and Louis is too lazy to move to his bunk, so hard nipples and unhappy feet it is.

“Can I sit down?”

Louis isn't exactly sure how Harry's brain works since he apparently takes the fact that Louis is planning on going to sleep as a sign that now would be a good time to sit down for a chat, but. “If you must,” he says, rising up into a sitting position.

Harry gets situated right next to Louis and folds his hands in his lap. “So,” he says.

“So,” Louis echoes.

“Have you been on Twitter today?”

Louis can feel his heart drop into his stomach, because he has yet to experience that question being followed by positive news. “No, why?” he asks slowly, turning around ninety degrees to face Harry properly. Their knees brush together, but Harry doesn't react at all, and so neither does Louis.

“There was a picture and-”

Louis grimaces, effectively cutting Harry off, trying not to think too hard about what kind of picture could have possibly leaked. It could, potentially, be many things, but he's not sure how many of the possibilities he has in mind are likely. “What kind of picture? Does it include me?” Then he pales. “It wasn't something... smutty, was it?”

“I- what? You have smutty pictures of yourself lying around?”

“Not that I'm aware of, but you never know.”

Harry looks almost a little disappointed for a moment. “No, it's nothing smutty,” he says. “Remember when we played in Nashville and we went to find Phil together before the show, and we walked through the stadium?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, someone snapped a picture of us from some of the seats in the upper rows.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “That picture got out on the day it was taken, Harry. It's not exactly news. They could only determine that it was you in the picture, they weren't sure if it was me as well.”

“Apparently they are now, because it was all over my mentions an hour ago, the original picture along with a picture of your t-shirt, which seems to be all the confirmation they need to state out loud that it was, indeed, you walking next to me.”

And... oh. Louis considers that for a moment. 

It's odd; two years ago, he flinched and felt like hiding the very second anyone made as much as a vague mention of the possibility of a relationship between him and Harry. There have been rumours after that, too, of course, but since he stopped searching the Larry Stylinson-tag on Twitter for laughs almost three years ago, he hasn't been directly confronted with it. Now that he is, he realises that he doesn't really care that there are fans out there who are suspicious. If they want to think there's something going on, that's... fine. It's whatever, really.

“Okay,” he says. “Is that all?”

“' _Is that all?_ '” Harry's eyes are wide and he's looking nothing less than shocked. “You don't care that they know we're not lethal enemies, that we're actually... on good terms?”

“No, Harry, I don't care about that. Let them know that we don't despise each other, hell, let them think we're deeply in love, what do I care?” 

It's quiet for a heavily loaded moment. “ _What_?” Harry then says, voice as incredulous as his face. 

Maybe Louis should have expected some kind of less than enthusiastic reaction, but he kinda didn't. He just assumed... no, actually, he didn't assume anything because he never got as far as to calculate any possible reactions Harry might have. 

But Harry's staring at him now and his jaw has gone taut and his nostrils are even bigger than usual and his eyes... Fuck, _his eyes_ , they're bright green and they're shining with what can't be anything but tears unless Harry's high on something. Louis doesn't know what to do about a Harry that's ten seconds away from crying, not anymore at least, so he does what he does best: Nothing. He sits there, less than half a metre away from someone who's close to tears, and he does nothing. Louis sucks.

“You suck, Lou, do you know that?” At least there's some kind of consensus going on, then. Harry looks down and sucks in his bottom lip between his teeth, and Louis knows he's just stalling for time, but he still doesn't say a word. A good half minute passes before Harry looks up again. He's not actually crying yet, so that's something. “We fucking broke up because you were too terrified that anyone was gonna find out about us,” he says hollowly. “And now you've seemingly pulled a complete one-eighty on that opinion, and you didn't even think to let me know?” 

“I- no?” It comes out as a question. “Was I supposed to?”

“It's common courtesy,” Harry says, words clipped.

Louis is falling more bewildered by the second and he allows his face to show it by raising both eyebrows. “It's considered common courtesy to let your ex boyfriend know that your thoughts on public outing have changed?”

Harry's glare is murderous. “It is when his thoughts on public outing was the reason the relationship ended, yes.”

“Oh, well, then I'm sorry, Harry,” Louis says with a biting laugh. “I'll make sure to inform you the next time I have some kind of epiphany about my feelings that, when I think about, doesn't concern you in any way.”

“It does, too!”

“Maybe if we were still dating, yeah, but-”

“But we aren't!” Harry shouts. He bloody _shouts_ and Louis flinches. “We aren't together anymore! We aren't together anymore and that's because you didn't want to come out, but you're saying you'd be fine with that if it happened now, so-”

“So _what_? It doesn't matter, Harry!” Louis shouts back, throwing his hands in the air. “We're not together anymore, we're barely friends, if that, and you made it very clear that you're perfectly happy being just that! So don't come here now and try to make me feel guilty for not telling you something that's a highly personal matter that no one has any bloody _right_ to know unless I want them to!”

“I'm not-”

“Just because we used to fuck once upon a time, it doesn't mean you're entitled to know about the inner workings of my head, you know! Even if we were still fucking, you still wouldn't be entitled to _anything_!”

“Don't make it sound like-”

“You strut around here with those ridiculous hats on your head and your hair hanging all the way down to your shoulders, looking like the dirty LA hipster you've apparently become, and act like the world is at your bloody feet and like you own everything and everyone in it, but guess _fucking what_? You don't own anyone and you certainly don't-”

“ _Will you shut up for one moment?_ ” Harry bellows. “You're not even making any sense right now!”

“I'm making all the sense in the world, _Harold_! And no, I won't shut up, because you- you are a fucking nuisance and I've had it up to-”

That's as far as Louis gets before his mouth finds itself otherwise occupied. He doesn't see it coming, doesn't see Harry lean in even though they've been staring right at each other for the better part of the last five minutes. But it doesn't matter that he didn't see it coming; in fact, nothing matters, because Harry's lips are an insistent pressure on his, soft and full and everything Louis remembers them to be.

An involuntary whimper chimes in his throat, and all his anger and all his will to scream seem to vanish like dew before the sun. Lifting his arms to wrap around Harry's neck, he returns the kiss tentatively with a slow rolls of his lips and a gentle nudge of his chin. A feeble urge to cry in relief surges through him when Harry's hands find their way to his waist, tugging him closer as the kiss deepens.

Harry pushes Louis' blanket to the floor, leaving Louis bare legs and arms exposed to the still semi-cold air. But then he pulls Louis up into his lap, folding around him like a human heater, and Louis all but purrs at the feeling of having Harry's body so close. And he feels exactly the same way he did two years ago, only a little bigger, muscles a little firmer. Never breaking the kiss, Louis shifts his legs to frame Harry's hips, revels in the feeling of Harry's big hands on his naked thighs.

There should be some sort of notion of stupidity in his mind, something to remind him that he's probably making a very big mistake by engaging in a snogging-session that increases in intensity for each passing second with Harry. But it's just blank, he can't focus on anything other than on how good it feels to have Harry lick carefully into his mouth, to get to touch Harry again without pondering the ramifications, to feel the very prominent firmness of Harry's thighs right underneath his own.

Harry's hands slip underneath Louis' shirt, pausing for a moment or two with the pads of his fingers pressed against the soft skin on Louis' hips, before slides them further up, up, up until they reach his nipples. Louis breaks the kiss and keens high in his throat, arches his back whilst simultaneously rocking his hips down, and Harry laughs, a little breathless.

“Still got a thing for having your nipples played with, I take it,” he murmurs as he circles his thumb over the quickly hardening nub.

“Yes, Harry, weird as it may seem, my erogenous zones haven't moved,” Louis manages to get out in between small pants.

Harry grins, his lips brushing against Louis' when he replies with a low, “Good, makes it easier to know what to do and what not to do.” He pinches his fingers tightly together around Louis' nipple and Louis lets out a staccato moan that's promptly swallowed when Harry reconnects their lips.

Harry's wearing a pair of his ridiculously tight and constricting jeans, but every time Louis rocks his hip down, he can still feel the growing bulge that presses against his arse, matching his own rapidly hardening cock. It's been several months, almost a year, since Louis got off with anyone other than himself and it's been approximately one year and ten months since he got off with someone with a dick. 

It's not like he'd forgotten what it felt like, touching someone who instead of boobs has a mildly scratchy chin and who instead of a self-lubricating hole has an erection in their pants. But he doesn't remember it feeling this good either, like no matter how hard he grinds down and no matter how rough Harry's fingers are on his nipple and no matter sloppy and frantic their kiss is, it's not enough. Shifting forward, he arches his back sharply, making his cock press against Harry's stomach, and the sudden friction makes him moan appreciatively into the kiss.

If it's been one year and ten months since he last got off with a guy, it must be closer to three years since he got off by dry-humping someone whilst still clothed. But he doesn't wanna waste time getting undressed, is too afraid that as much as ten seconds of being physically separated from Harry is gonna make him come to his senses, so he accepts his fate and picks up his pace.

With the hand that isn't abusing Louis' nipple, Harry grabs onto his arse, kneading it almost painfully. A languid groan that gets lost in the wet sounds of their lips and tongues working together comes falling out of Harry's mouth, and Louis smiles, feeling rather self-satisfied. He bites down on Harry's bottom lip, tugs carefully at it for a moment before he lets go and licks along the shallow teeth marks so soothe them. 

Harry laughs, curtly and breathlessly, and takes a second to dig his nails into Louis' thigh before he bows his head down and, completely without any kind of warning, closes his teeth around Louis' nipple.

Louis' whole body spasms and he moans out loud, throwing his head so far back he'd have fallen to the floor if it hadn't been for Harry's arms securely wrapped around his back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he pants. “I fucking hate you, do you know that?” 

Harry only hums and that vibrations shoots through Louis like a canon ball. With Harry attacking his nipple and his cock rubbing against Harry's front, it's not long before he's got a frenzied rhythm going, and he thinks dazedly that the only thing that would have made this better was if Harry's cock was inside him instead of trapped in a pair of tight trousers. He can feel Harry roll his hips stutteringly, over and over again, and there's something desperate about how he's resorted to sucking rather forcefully on Louis', probably, bright pink nipple.

“You gonna come like this?” Louis mumbles, rocking his hips extra slowly for emphasis. Harry hums again, but doesn't seem willing to stop what he's doing anytime soon. Louis can live with that. “Good. Then I won't feel too bad about jizzing my pants.”

He can feel it starting build, like a terribly slow burn, as he speaks. His abs are tightening and his dick twitches in his boxers, begging to be touched, but nope, no, he's gonna come like this, without any proper touches save for Harry's mouth on his nipple. If Louis had been asked two hours ago to envision how a future hookup with Harry would happen, this would probably not have been it. At the very least, he'd have thought they'd be naked and in a bed, not clothed on the couch in the bus lounge. 

But here they are, rubbing against each other like a couple of horny fifteen year-olds, and Louis knows he's gonna come within ten seconds, can feel himself falling apart, one tiny bit at the time. His moans go from tiny and breathless to loud and more breathless, and even though his nipple has long since gone numb, Harry's sucks and bites still send white-hot sparks of pleasure right down to his leaking cock.

His orgasm hits him like a train and he gasps and moans all the way through it, his grinds being reduced to tiny jerks. He's starting to come down when Harry throws his head back, mouth falling open as he comes, hips pulsing under Louis as a patch of wetness forms on his jeans.

Afterwards, it's eerily quiet. A fly is buzzing around somewhere behind Louis, but he barely takes notice of it. His eyes are on Harry, whose head is still resting on the back of the couch, and he waits. He waits for something to happen. Perhaps an asteroid will fall from the sky and hit the bus, maybe the ground will open up under them and swallow them whole, maybe an axe murderer will come barging in and slaughter them. But Harry doesn't show any signs of wanting to say or do anything at all any time soon. Louis can see that his eyes are open, but they're glued to the ceiling. Maybe he's in shock.

“Harry?” It comes out with a quivering undertone, and Louis clears his throat. “Are we... was that okay?”

“I don't know,” Harry says without looking up.

Louis' chest tightens and he thinks maybe this would be a good time to run to his bunk and have a good, long cry. If Harry's gonna start yelling again, Louis sure as hell isn't gonna stick around for it. “Okay,” he says, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. Harry doesn't say anything, so he adds a hesitant, “Should I go?”

Harry shrugs. “If you want to.”

Louis frowns. “Alright, let me make this very easy for you,” he says, clasping his hands together. “Are you mad at me? If the answer is yes, I assume you want me to leave. If the answer is no, please look at me and tell me what's going on in your head, because right now, you're making me feel very uncomfortable.” He doesn't add, ' _And not only because there's drying spunk in my boxers_ ', but he really wants to.

Harry stays still for a bit longer. Tracing his thumb along the seam of his lips, he pokes his tongue out pensively. “You made me come in my pants,” he says eventually, eyes still on the ceiling. “I haven't done that since I was sixteen.”

He doesn't sound mad, so Louis dares attempting a smile. “I'm good like that,” he says.

Harry finally raises his head and there's no anger to detect on his face as far as Louis can tell, but there's nothing else to detect either. A look of complete impassiveness is engraved in his features, the only source of something real being his eyes, which gleam with what Louis can only perceive as nervousness.

“I think,” Harry starts, furrowing his eyebrows, “that this may have been a bad idea.”

A significant part of Louis already knew that, but there was also a part of him that hoped that maybe he was wrong. Apparently that isn't the case as far as Harry's concerned, and Louis now thinks he knows what it feels like to be in free falling after throwing oneself off the roof of a skyscraper. He also thinks he knows what it feels like to land on the cold, hard ground after said free falling. Neither one is a particularly good feeling. The first leaves him empty, the latter leaves him butchered and with insides that have turned into rotten mush.

But God, if Harry thinks they made a mistake, who is Louis to create a fuss over that? “Yeah,” he therefore says, the word having to crawl around the knot in his throat to get out. “Okay, that's... okay.” Clambering off Harry's lap, he straightens out his t-shirt and grimaces when the fabric brushes over his sore nipple. He feels awfully naked all of a sudden, so he grabs his blanket from the floor and wraps it around his shoulders like a cape.

Harry makes a face when he gets on his feet, probably getting a feel of the consequences of coming in his pants. He stands there in front of Louis, still with the furrow between his eyebrows, and doesn't say a word for a good half minute. “Are we... are we okay?” is how he breaks the silence.

Louis shrugs helplessly. He'd love to tell Harry that yes, of course they're okay, but the truth is that he's pretty sure nothing's okay between them right now. “Probably not.”

“Right.” Harry swallows visibly, eyes darting back and forth between one of the sooty windows and Louis face before eventually settling on the latter. “Is that because we... did this or because I said it was probably a bad idea afterwards?”

“Both, I suppose,” Louis says truthfully. When Harry's face falls, he sighs, rubs the back of his neck as he thinks of what to continue with. “What did you expect, then? That we could hook up and just go on like it never happened? We're not... I mean, _I'm_ not there just yet and to be honest, I doubt that you are either. I can't do a casual hook-up with you and then carry on like it didn't... like it didn't mean anything when it meant-” He stops there, catching himself just in time, and finishes with a tame, “When it meant something.”

“What does ' _something_ ' mean?” Harry asks.

Louis gestures aimlessly with his hand. “I don't know, just... something, I guess. I dunno.”

“Something,” Harry repeats with a nod. “So, does that mean...” He trails off, eyes uncertain when they meet Louis'. “Does that mean you don't think it was a mistake?”

And that's the question Louis was kinda hoping Harry wouldn't ask. He feels like the situation calls for full disclosure to avoid any unwanted future arguments, but at the same time, it's possible that full disclosure might lead to unwanted arguments right now. However, they're already standing here all alone, so if an argument is gonna break out, now might be a good a time as any. 

“Well,” he says, “I'm not saying it necessarily was the best idea any of us have had, but... I don't necessarily think it was a mistake either.” Forcing a smile, he adds, “Or, you know, at least I didn't until you said that you did think it was a mistake. That might have rattled my opinion a little.”

“Oh,” Harry says, a little guilt-ridden by the looks of it. 

It's quiet for a long, long time after that, but Louis can practically hear Harry think, so he just waits, tries not to think too hard himself. Harry takes a step backwards and sits down on the couch, chews absentmindedly on his lip as his fingers fiddle with a bracelet he's wearing around his wrist. 

“Can I ask you something?” he says. Louis nods, and Harry sucks in a deep breath before speaking up. “Don't... don't laugh at me if I'm completely off the fence, but have you missed me these last two years?”

Louis blinks, didn't quite expect the question, but it doesn't come as a total surprise either. Smiling weakly, he says, “Every single day.” It's an easy answer to give, he doesn't have to think about it for as much as a second.

Harry nods in silent acceptance. “Do you miss me right now?”

“Harry...”

“Please, Lou, just answer.”

And Louis can't look at Harry now, not if he's gonna stick to his promise of full disclosure, can't bear the thought of possibly having his reply be met by ridicule or contempt. But he's here and he knows that if he doesn't answer honestly now, he'll probably never get another chance and definitely won't ever have the courage again.

Walking over to sit down next to Harry, he draws his legs up underneath himself and pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders. It feels safer like that. “When we got back after my mum's wedding, I didn't know what to think,” he says. “A small part of me thought- or hoped, perhaps, that what we said and did under that tree would change something. And it did, in a way, just maybe not quite in the way I'd hoped it would, because I got back here and you told me that none of it had meant anything and that you were glad to finally put our relationship in the ground once and for all, and it's not... it's not like that's not something I wanted for a long time, because I did, but then you said it out loud and it didn't feel right, like, at all.”

“Okay,” Harry says, a little confused, but not aggravated or miffed as far as Louis can tell, so that's possibly a good sign. “And?”

“ _And_ it's like... it's been a lot lately, hasn't it? Half a year ago we barely looked at each other and then you came over the night you and Nick split and it felt like a dam burst and suddenly you were back in my life for better or worse. I'd spent so long missing you, but the thing is, you and I were never really friends or acquaintances, we pretty much went straight from strangers to boyfriends, so I guess... I guess when I missed you, I missed you being my boyfriend, not you being my friend or my colleague or anything like that. I missed having you in my life as a romantic factor and I didn't really realise that, so-”

“Louis, please,” Harry cuts him off, looking more confused than ever. “Where are you going with this?”

Louis draws the blanket even further up, so high it covers his chin and his neck, before he replies. “I'm just trying to tell you that when I've been missing you all this time, I've been missing my boyfriend. And you asked me if I'm missing you right now, so... if I say yes, what I'll essentially be saying is that I still miss you being my boyfriend.”

The confusion drains off Harry's face in an instant and in its place comes a strange mixture of shock, realisation and... plead? “And... do you?” he asks. “Do you miss me being your boyfriend?” Louis has to admire how Harry doesn't seem at all nervous to put himself in a position of vulnerability like this, how it looks like regardless of what Louis' answer might be, he'll be fine. It must be a nice quality to be in possession of.

“I don't know.”

“Lou...”

“I don't know, okay? I don't know.” Louis closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I never really got around to the part where I stopped loving you, Harry. I reckon that'd have been easier if we broke up over disliking each other, but we didn't, so...”

“Is that a yes?”

“Like I said, I don't know.” He pauses. “Maybe I do. Or maybe I just miss having someone to be with.”

“Or maybe you miss being with me.”

“Maybe.”

“Okay.” Harry smiles. “I've missed you, too, for the record, missed having you as my boyfriend. Still do, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Louis' cheeks heat up a little and he smiles back. “Okay.”

“And... maybe earlier wasn't a mistake.”

“I- what?” Louis makes a face. “Why did you say it was, then?”

Now it's Harry's time to blush. Ducking his head, he says to his knees, “Because I thought that's what you thought, so I didn't wanna make a fool of myself by holding a speech about how... good it felt to be with you like that again.”

“Yeah? So I've still got it?” Louis asks, grinning widely.

“You've still got it,” Harry confirms.

“Good to know.”

“Yeah.”

Poking one of his hands out from the opening in the blanket-cape, Louis drags his fingers down along the expanse of Harry's arm. Harry smiles when he grabs a hold of Louis' hand, interlacing their fingers. “So,” Louis says. “Now what?”

Harry purses his lips and gives a shrug of his shoulders. “Now I guess we've really buried our relationship and we can go on to be friends?”

Louis feels like all the blood in his body disappears at once, along with his heart. He forces out a small, “What?” that breaks halfway through. They stare at each other for a prolonged moment, but then Harry's complacent face dissolves and he grins toothily. “You're awful,” Louis states with a scowl. “Like proper awful. Fuck you. No, I'm being serious here, what happens now? Do we just carry on with our lives or do we... I don't know-”

“Do some more kissing?” Harry suggests.

Louis quirks one eyebrow. “Not exactly what I was gonna say, but alright. Do we just carry on with our lives or do we do some more kissing?”

“I don't know. Do you want to do some more kissing?”

“Do you?” Louis retorts. Like hell if he's gonna be the one to take the first step here.

“Maybe?” Harry says. His hand is bigger than Louis', so much so that it more or less envelopes it completely. Louis always liked that and he still does, apparently, as the image of his own hand covered by Harry's makes his stomach flutter. When Louis doesn't answer, Harry opens his mouth again. “I mean, we could... try for a bit and see how it goes?”

“Try what for a bit? Dating?”

“No, just, like, the prelude to dating, I guess. Hanging out, kissing, taking it easy, enjoy each other's company. If you want?”

If Louis wants. He's not sure if he wants to laugh or cry or scream or maybe all at once. “That sounds... doable,” is all he says in the end. “Take it very nice and slow, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “And we don't say anything to anyone.”

“Yeah.”

Harry smiles again, but it fades quickly as a shadow grows in his eyes. “Just one thing, though,” he says. “If... if it works out between us, I need- I need to know that you're not gonna-”

“I'll come out with you, Harry,” Louis cuts in. Inching closer to Harry, he leans in and places a feather-light kiss on his cheek. “Whenever and wherever you want. If everything goes to shit again, it won't be because of that, I promise.”

That seems to be all the reassurance Harry needs. The shadow clears out and the smile returns as he rubs his nose against Louis', making them both snort out loud at the cheesiness. But then Harry captures his lips in a slow kiss and the laughter dies, leaving them in complete silence. 

Louis closes his eyes and his heart feels lighter than it has in a long time and this, he thinks, _this_ is a feeling he could get used to, and he can't help but hope that he'll get the chance to do just that.

“Hey, Harry?” he murmurs, still with his eyes closed.

“Hm?”

“Ask me what flavour you are.”

“What?”

“Ask me what flavour you are.”

“Alright. What flavour am I?”

Louis grins, pecks Harry's lips, and says, “Hopes for a future.”

Harry draw back and makes a face of disgust. “That was cheesy, like actually proper awful.”

“Not a lie, though, right?”

“No,” Harry agrees. “Not a lie.”

And that's all Louis needs right now, really – a promise that even though nothing's certain _right now_ , there's hope that some day, everything will be.

**Author's Note:**

> Normally I would say, "Come talk to me on tumblr!", but I'm guessing that putting my URL here would pretty much defeat the purpose of an anonymous exchange, so for now, maybe leave a comment and let me know what you thought and I'll love you forever? (Or, if you read this after the author reveal, there's a link to my tumblr on my profile, so if that's the case: Come talk to me!) Either way, thank you so much for reading, I really appreciate it! xx


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